


the strangers in your head

by orphan_account



Series: so far from being free [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A blend of show/book canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arya-centric, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Fix-It, Gendry & Arya run away together basically, Multi, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Arya, Obvious Gendry, POV Arya Stark, Robb Lives, Slow Burn, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2020-06-23 13:13:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19702090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: As she rode faster across the drawbridge, Arya felt her heart grow lighter in her chest. The rain washed her burdens away, leaving only the clopping of hooves and a broken betrothal in its wake. Running away was the only option she had left.By the time the sun peered out over the horizon, Riverrun’s bells were tolling and there were half a hundred men searching for her.





	1. stood with our backs to the sun

**Author's Note:**

> You don't need to read 'so far from being free' to follow along but if you want to get a look at some of the narrative stuff referred to here, I'd recommend reading chapters 1-4! If not, here's a quick summary of where we're at in the first chapter:
> 
> Theon rescued Sansa from King's Landing which started a whole domino effect of events: Robb married Roslin Frey and never got murdered at the Red Wedding, Arya safely reunited with her family in Riverrun, and her betrothal with Elmar Frey is still on as the War of the Five Kings continues.

Gendry parried to the left, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process of dodging a blow. He just barely evaded the wooden sword that Harys swung in his direction, trying and failing to get a strike of his own in. Then he tried again and again, furiously whacking at everything in his line of sight in an attempt to catch his opponent off guard. Harys cried out when Gendry’s weapon thumped against his chest, spinning frantically to try and get out of his line of attack.

Arya watched them spar from her spot on the wooden fence in Riverrun’s training yard, still sweating from her last match against Ralph the coal boy.

This was getting to be quite boring. Her blood was pumping for a _real_ fight, not one fought with blunt swords that were more likely to give someone a splinter than do any bodily harm. 

She considered going back to the kitchens for another snack to amuse herself with, but the realization that Hot Pie was off duty dashed those dreams as quickly as they came to her. The head cook -some old bat named Fiona with beady, horrid eyes- never let Arya nick food from the pantries when she was on shift, always telling Arya to watch her weight as if she gave a damn about that. Why should it be anyone’s business whether Arya ate one raspberry tart or eleven? 

_Let me get nice and fat_ , Arya thought spitefully, figuring that Elmar Frey wouldn’t want to marry her so badly if he saw her playing with swords anyhow. She could only pray that he died during the war somehow and spared her the trouble of following through with their marriage pact. She couldn't imagine sharing her life with a stranger, much less one as spineless as the meek boy she was meant to wed. 

Arya tried not to think about the betrothal, but it always seemed to hang over her like a sword on a rope.

No matter what empty promises Mother and Robb and Sansa made her about the marriage, Arya could only anticipate her worst-case scenario; some weasel-looking, pimply-faced boy who would stuff her into dresses, keep her locked up in a run-down castle, and force her to give him ten little snotty-nosed Walders and Waldas to run around and give her grief. She would gut him if he tried to take Needle from her.

Stupid Elmar Frey. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

Suddenly she wanted to sink her thin sword into her intended’s neck and watch as tight bursts of blood gushed out. Mayhaps she would strangle him on their wedding night and blame it on some Lannister loyalist or another to make it believable. She supposed she could always just buy some poison off of someone to slip into his wine too, but that seemed significantly less exciting than the alternative of a bloody murder.

Gods, she wished she could be anywhere but here.

Part of her regretted not taking up Sansa’s offer to ride with her to the Vale, but she knew enough about her aunt that she was certain a plea for more men would be futile.

Arya imagined the Moon Door in all its glory, supposedly thousands of leagues off the ground. She wondered if it would live up to all of the stories. King’s Landing had been a great disappointment to her as a whole, so she didn’t really trust songs and poems about the South anymore.

Riverrun was nice enough but there was nothing special about it, not when there was a whole keep to the east of them that had a murder-hole built into it. 

She tried to envision pushing Joffrey through the Moon Door to his death, his head hitting the ground with a sickening squish just like the summertime watermelons would when she and Bran would take turns throwing them off the castle walls. She missed causing mischief with her brother, no matter how often Mother griped at them for all but destroying the groundskeeper's hard work. Royland never seemed to mind it much, so there was no real harm done.

Robb had gone off to treat with the Dragon Queen in Dragonstone and Arya was admittedly still a little cross with him for not bringing her along. It was only two weeks after the fact and she was still certain that she would hold this grudge for years to come. Her own brother deprived her of the chance to see a real-life dragon in action because it ‘wasn’t safe’ for her; now he was off, probably riding a dragon for himself, while she was here watching her friends beat each other into the dirt like she always did.

Gendry had just knocked Harys down when Brynden Tully came out of the holdfast, a letter in his hand like he had some news to deliver.

Probably bad news by the way things had been going lately.

Her closest friend -since she supposed that’s what Gendry was to her now- glanced at her for approval or praise or whatever it was he was expecting when he came to, but she couldn’t be bothered to turn to him with the way her grand-uncle was ambling up to her. He looked stern, worried. It was bad news then.

“Little Wolf,” the Blackfish smiled warmly as he approached them, or about as warm as he could manage. He was fond of her in spite of all the trouble she caused around the keep but still maintained a cool distance all the same. “A word?”

“Coming,” Arya leaped off of her seat on the beam to hear out whatever it was that he wanted to tell her.

She was rarely privy to anything that went on here so this was a surprising change of pace from how she was usually kept in the dark by her kin.

The Blackfish nodded, grateful that she wasn’t prodding him with questions in front of her companions, and turned back towards the castle.

She heard Gendry huff a sigh behind her as she followed her grand-uncle. Harys grunted as the other boy pulled him to his feet and asked a younger stablehand to join in on the fun. “C’mere Alastair. Think you can take me on for a change?”

Arya smirked to herself, already knowing that Gendry would go easy on him.

They had barely entered Riverrun’s foyer when Brynden Tully turned to her and gave it to her straight.

“I’m sending you up North, girl.” Brynden told her frankly, not sparing any of his energy on false promises or reassurances. She always appreciated that he didn’t waste time on horse shit like the rest of them. “It’s not safe here. The Lannisters are advancing on us and it’ll come to battle before long.”

“No!” Arya cried out, knowing exactly what that would mean for her. She would be allowed the comfort of her home until the war was won, and then she would be marched down the aisle and shipped off to the Twins like a shiny gift. Sansa promised she wouldn’t have to go, she _promised_. Arya schooled her tone to sound more adult, like her sister always did when she tried to convince people to do her bidding. “I’m not going, Blackfish. You can’t make me.”

The Blackfish sighed, not even reacting to her use of his nickname. “I wasn’t asking.”

“You can’t,” Arya lifted her chin up and squared her shoulders, taking on another approach immediately when the first one fell flat. “I’m the king’s sister and I say I’m not going, not unless Robb comes back and tells me himself.”

“This isn’t a discussion, Lady Stark.” The Blackfish teased and she wanted to clobber him in the nose for it. He might treat her like a child now, but he’d just as soon send her to her life sentence with Elmar Frey without thinking twice of it. “Have your things packed and ready by the morning. You’ll be heading out at first light, you hear me, girl?”

Arya was seething but bit her tongue until it bled, knowing better than to argue with a notoriously stubborn man like her uncle. A million thoughts and arguments and plans built up in her head, swimming around there until she thought she might scream aloud. “Yes.”

He cracked what almost looked like a smile. “Alright then.”

She spent hours planning her escape, wishing more than ever that Jaqen was here to clear a path for her like he had done in Harrenhal. She was all alone now, though, and had one chance at getting away.

Arya took her time packing all her possessions into her bags, smiling sweetly at the servants who came to check on her progress, and channeled all her vigor into putting on a good show for them. She considered rushing out in the lazy hours of the afternoon but thought better of it once the logistics of the plan came into question. There were too many eyes, too many people that would take notice of her leaving with a bag of supplies on horseback.

She couldn’t leave while the sun was still in the sky, not if she wanted to get a good lead ahead of her uncle’s household guard.

She started slowly but surely, sneaking a few cakes into her satchel when she was making conversation with Hot Pie before supper. He didn’t notice her thievery -or did, but simply assumed she was hungry and said nothing of it- so she got a bit bolder. By the time she left the kitchens, her bag was bustling with a variety of bread and cakes and cheeses, all things that would last her a few days on the road at the very least. Weeks if she rationed it well.

The mid-afternoon feast came sooner than anticipated and she gorged herself on it, figuring that this might be the last good meal she got for a while. It was sprinkling lightly outside, but she supposed it always did in the Riverlands. She could survive a little rain. Gods knew she had survived worse before.

Arya thought of Sansa at the Vale, Robb at Dragonstone, Jon at the Wall, and Bran and Rickon at Winterfell.

Their pack was scattered out in the world, doing exactly what their father had cautioned them against doing. With her luck, Sansa would fall through the Moon Door, Robb would get burned alive by a dragon, Jon would get eaten by some grumkins, and her little brothers would get slain by some wildlings in the wolfswood.

No.

Arya forced herself to believe that they would be fine. Bran and Rickon had Mother with them, and Jon and Sansa were clever. Robb was… well, he was resourceful, she supposed. Mayhaps he’d charm his way into the Dragon Queen’s heart before she burnt him alive. The thought almost made Arya chuckle. Girls always fawned over her oldest brother, but she didn't have the slightest clue why. He was a bumbling idiot most of the time, and that was on a good day.

Arya stuffed another bag with roasted vegetables and three full water skins after her meal, taking care not to tip them over when she stored them in her chambers for safekeeping. 

She turned to her closet and picked out a few spare sets of clothes for the journey, grabbing at the blue tunic that Sansa sewed for her when the Hound first brought her back.

She smiled, running her fingers along the vines that her sister sewed onto the thing, trying to make it pretty no matter how much time it took. Typical Sansa.

The evening was mundane enough, filled with the same old shit that always happened.

Rymund the Rhymer was entertaining some ladies in the parlor, singing some obnoxious love ballad about the ‘Sea Wolf’ and her ‘Winter Kraken’ as if there was some secret lifelong love affair going on between her sister and Theon. Unless there was something salacious that Arya missed in her childhood, they hadn’t even taken notice of each other until Theon’s rescue mission to the capital. As much as she loved Sansa and tolerated Theon, they hadn't done much to deserve love songs being written about them. All they did was get caught in bed together, but the singers made it sound like some epic melodrama. 

They may have been the two most irritating people Arya had ever met, so it was rather fitting that they found happiness with each another in the end.

Nevertheless, she sat through the song and about a dozen others, trying to dull her boredom with spiced wine. It didn't taste so bad now that she had it a few times.

Arya avoided any prying eyes, keeping her eyes fixed on her plate of roasted boar in front of her in an attempt not to draw attention to herself. She retired to her chambers close to midnight, unable to get a lick of sleep with the exhilaration coursing through her.

She would escape soon, loose in the Riverlands like Nymeria was. It would be the first time she had gone anywhere alone since she was running through the slums of King’s Landing, clutching a pigeon to her chest like she could actually exchange it for some food. Arya was smarter now, though. Older too. She would be able to make it on her own as well as any lordling or king could. If Theon Greyjoy could make the journey across the region twice, Arya was sure she could manage it at least for long enough to find a ship and sail far away from here. If she was to be sold like cattle to some lord, she wanted to see some of the world for herself first.

It was almost the hour of the wolf when Brienne finally retired from where she was standing vigil at Arya’s door.

It only took a half-hour for her less alert replacement to sneak off like he always did at nighttime, shirking his duties without fail. In his defense, guarding her had been a mundane job up until tonight, typically just a quiet eight hours before Arya got up to practice her archery outside. Arya had long suspected that Rowan was shagging some serving girl or another in the castle but had never been so grateful for his irresponsibility until now, when she was bolting down the corridor of the castle with two bags in hand.

 _Quiet as a cat_ , she reminded herself, trying to channel the energy of that stupid cat in the Red Keep so that she wouldn’t wake anyone.

She reached the stables without incident, the gardens quiet with the exception of nearby crickets rubbing their legs together to create a symphony of the most annoying sound she had ever heard in her life.

The rain was more forceful now, practically drenching Arya while she swiftly saddled Sansa’s old mount, Maegor.

She’d throw a proper fit if she knew Arya was stealing her beloved horse, but Arya couldn’t bring herself to care. This steed was her key out of the castle, calmer than any of the others that were kept with it in the stables. Sansa would forgive her eventually.

She was just in the process of securing her bags to Maegor’s side when a voice came from behind her, one that stopped her right in her tracks.

“Where are you running off to?”

She had been so _close_ too.

“Need to piss,” Arya responded immediately, thinking on her feet with all the wits of a tadpole. She winced as she slowly turned around, facing her friend while her cheeks warmed and turned a splotchy red hue. “Mind giving me a little privacy?”

“With a horse and two bags?” Gendry asked exasperatedly, crossing his arms over his chest with confusion. Anger suddenly colored his expression as he gestured to Maegor. “You think I’m that stupid, Arya?”

He didn’t look like he would believe any lie that she bothered telling him at this point, so Arya did what she did best and deflected.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Arya spun it around on him, not knowing why Gendry would be walking about at this hour anyway. Something strange prickled inside of her at the thought of him having a late-night rendezvous like her guard did. What business did Gendry have fooling around with a girl while there was a war going on? She thought of Bella and the bell he may or may not have rung for her, and her accusation came out like vomit in her throat, each word tinged with a bit more malice than the last. “Meeting a girl for a quick tumble in the bushes?”

“What? No!” Gendry looked more offended at that insinuation than he had at being called stupid. He narrowed his eyes at her with suspicion. “Couldn’t sleep so I took a walk around to clear my head. Saw you sneaking off and thought I’d see what you were doing.”

Seven hells.

Arya heard a horse whinnying off behind her and jumped at the sound. She whipped her head around to try to see if there was anyone lurking nearby.

If someone recognized her here, this would be the end of her.

She would be brought to her grand-uncle and he would surely force a guard of at least twenty men to escort her to Winterfell. Then she wouldn’t be trusted with a single moment alone before she was thrown into a bed-chamber with a stupid boy who would make her miserable until she was old and grey.

She didn’t have the time for this.

If someone else came out here and caught her now, she wouldn’t be able to explain this away.

Worse yet, if someone saw Gendry with her, they might assume that he was debauching her -or whatever it was that they thought lowborn boys did to highborn girls when they were alone- and have him hanged for it.

Common folk around here had been put to the sword for less.

“Arya, I don’t know what you’re-“

“Shut your hole,” Arya lurched forward to clamp a hand over Gendry’s mouth, his words dying on his lips when she practically tried to smother him. “I’m leaving, alright?”

Gendry furrowed his brows and tried talking against her palm, accomplishing nothing but getting spit all over her hand.

Disgusting.

Arya made a face but kept her hand in place, not willing to let him foil her plans because he couldn’t mind his own business.

“My mother told the Blackfish to send me back to Winterfell tomorrow.” He still seemed baffled at why she wouldn’t want to go home when it was all she talked about when they were with the Brotherhood Without Banners. Gods, how had she befriended such a bloody imbecile? “They’ll make me marry that weaselly little shit and I’ll never be free again. I’d rather die than be a Frey’s wife, Gendry. Or anyone’s wife for that matter."

She couldn't let her life end like this.

Arya scrunched her eyebrows together at him, a silent plea in her eyes. "Do you understand now? I’ve got to go before they notice I’m gone.”

Comprehension dawned in Gendry’s eyes as soon as she said the word ‘Frey’ so she figured it was safe to release him. Rubbing her moist hands on the side of her breeches, she nodded curtly at him and turned back to Maegor, ready to mount him for the journey ahead of her.

Then she felt a hand at her wrist.

She whirled around, ready to punch Gendry if he tried to stop her for any reason.

Only the gods could help him if he got any bright ideas about going to Winterfell and trying to talk her mother out of marrying her off; she tried half a dozen times and it hadn’t worked. Even Sansa hadn’t been able to get through to her, and Robb was married to the boy’s own sister.

None of them would be able to save her from this, so she would have to do it for herself.

“I’m coming with you.” His blue eyes were blown wide, a look of sheer determination dancing on his expression. She would have groaned aloud if she wasn’t worried about the noise it would cause. A part of her feared that Gendry would do this if he knew what she was planning, so she had made a point to avoid him for the day.

Arya shook her head immediately. “No. You’ll only slow me down-“

“I’m not letting you run off on your own, Arya,” she felt indignation rise up in her at the tone he took on, like he was a condescending older brother to her rather than a stupid boy who didn’t know when to leave things alone. “You could die out there.”

She scoffed. “And you’ll protect me?”

“Better me than no one,” Gendry shrugged, finally realizing that he was still holding onto her hand. He gulped and released it like it was scalding hot. “Just give me a second to grab my things, damn it. I’m coming with you whether you want me to or not, and that’s that.”

Arya lifted her chin defiantly. “And if I take off while you’re gone?”

Gendry looked like the picture of disbelief at the fact that she was struggling against this so much after he’d trekked across the bloody country to find her. “Then I’ll go straight to your uncle’s chambers and tell him where you went off to. He’ll catch you before the sun’s up.”

She felt a fire brewing in her belly, right on the brink of exploding. “You wouldn’t.”

“Are you really willing to risk it?” Gendry grinned at her, dangerous and bullheaded and stupid as ever. If she could bash his head in without causing a ruckus, she would.

Having Gendry with her wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Better him than the Hound, at the very least. Arya hated hating every moment of being hauled around the Riverlands on his horse, and Robb took practically rubbed salt into her wound by taking him along to Dragonstone.

She couldn’t believe the Hound got to see dragons before she did.

“Fine.” She conceded resignedly. “Be back in five minutes or I’m leaving without you.”

Gendry almost looked stunned at the affirmation that he could come with her to which she raised her brows expectantly. Was he just going to stand there all day?

“Any day now,” she gritted out, going back to strapping her bags in.

She heard the sound of feet meeting the ground behind her and decided to go ahead and saddle a horse for him, save them a little time while she was at it.

She picked a spotted mare, one that didn’t look like it would be missed much next to the other horses in its line-up.

Arya found herself flinching at every cracking branch and rustle of the wind that she heard, paranoid that someone would have heard her conversation with Gendry. They hadn’t exactly been as quiet as she would have been if he hadn’t found her, but they were past the point of regrets.

All she needed was to get out of the Riverlands, where there were no men donning trouts or wolves to drag her home. As much as she loved her family, she couldn’t just shut her eyes and accept her fate. 

If Robb wanted a stronger alliance with the Freys so badly, he could just take another one for a wife and call it a compromise, for all she cared.

She glanced around her surroundings, trying to spot any unwelcome guests hiding in the bushes or near the castle. Arya took an experimental step forward, her brow quirking upwards when she heard only silence in return. If someone was going to stop her, they would have done it by now, wouldn’t they?

To his credit, Gendry got back relatively quickly, black hair stuck to his forehead with sweat.

“Hot Pie saw me,” he panted out as he handed Arya his bag, pausing to catch his breath. When she shushed him, Gendry lowered his voice into a panicked whisper, trying to remedy the situation somewhat with a poor attempt at reassurance. “He said he wouldn’t tell.”

She slung the bag over her own chest, not having the patience to deal with Gendry right then. All she could think of were her older brothers, both bound to their own duties at the cost of their own happiness. 

She couldn't imagine such a life for herself, not when all she longed for was freedom. She wouldn’t be a willowy little princess who needed to be being saved by some knight or another; Arya would save herself no matter what it took.

But now Hot Pie knew and if someone asked him where she had gotten off to, this could be over for them in a matter of hours.

They had to leave _now_.

“Try to keep up, will you?” Arya snapped, urging her horse into a gallop. As she rode faster across the drawbridge, Arya felt her heart grow lighter in her chest. The rain washed her burdens away, leaving only the clopping of hooves and a broken betrothal in its wake. Running away was the only option she had left.  
  
By the time the sun peered out over the horizon, Riverrun’s bells were tolling and there were half a hundred men searching for her.


	2. nothing but fearless and young

“What’s taking so long?” Gendry grumbled from beside her, glancing with weary eyes at the stony hilltops around them. They had been riding for days and only stopped when one of them was about to keel over with exhaustion. This was taking far longer than any of the maps made it seem, but it was to be expected; the Riverlands was a massive region, one that took people weeks to cross from one end to the other. They would be at their destination soon enough as long as they kept at it. “It’s nothing but trees and rocks out here.”

“That’s the Riverlands for you,” Arya quipped, adjusting her horse’s reins in her hands. Her palms were reddened and sore, but she persevered all the same. A little pain was nothing for her.

Maegor’s hooves padded along the ground repeatedly and the noise of each rhythmic step was maddening to Arya’s ears. The sound of the trickling stream of the river could only entertain her for so long, and her patience was beginning to wear thin. At least they hadn’t run into any bandits yet.

The last thing they needed was to run into their good _friends_ from the Brotherhood Without Banners.

“Got any more pears left?” Gendry couldn’t stay quiet for long, trotting ahead of Arya as if to try to goad her into a race. He always poked fun at her for his own entertainment and it was beginning to get her riled up now that they had been on the road for a while. “I’m starving.”

“We just ate,” Arya protested, her plans of rationing their food completely dashed. Gendry always seemed to be hungry, truly just a bottomless pit of food. The boy needed at least three helpings of each meal to quit whining about his continually growling stomach. At this rate, they would be carving up their horses for a meal before they reached Wendish Town.

“Three hours ago!” Gendry objected, his horse stirring at the anger that it felt from its rider. He steadied his tone of voice so as not to upset it too much. “C’mon Arya, just hand one over.”

“No,” she snapped, annoyed now that he was pushing the issue. If she could limit her intake of food well enough not to starve to death, he could manage to go hungry for a little while longer. “Just think about something besides food for once. When we’re not starving in two weeks’ time, you’ll thank me for it.”

“Arya,” he whined again. “Please.”

Maegor whinnied and Arya supposed she would have to feed the horses soon anyhow.

She sighed. “If I do, will you shut up for a minute?”

“Yes,” Gendry insisted, fibbing like he always did when he wanted something. “I swear it.”

“Liar,” Arya muttered under her breath as she reached into her bag to procure an apricot for him. It was yellow and shiny in the light, the perfect size to sink her teeth into. She tossed the fruit through the air, smirking when Gendry struggled to catch it. “Here.”

He bit into it with vigor and Arya couldn’t look away.

The fruit was practically bursting with juice and the sight of it made her stomach flip thrice over with longing. Damn it all, she knew this would happen the moment Gendry asked for more food.

Now _she_ was hungry, but she couldn’t pull anything out for herself without her friend mocking her for her hypocrisy. She swallowed back her hunger and focused on Maegor’s steady clip-clopping. It wasn’t that great of a distraction anymore.

“Fucking hell,” Gendry moaned as if he knew how much his antics were getting to her. “It’s a real shame you’re not hungry, Arya, ‘cause this is _delicious_.”

Arya’s nostrils flared but she restrained herself. “Glad you’re enjoying it.”

He spat the seed out onto the side of the road and grinned over at her.

As if her body was just waiting for a chance to betray her, a loud rumbling sound left her stomach. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment when Gendry’s infuriating laughter filled the air, having immense fun at Arya’s expense now that she had been exposed as a liar. “Shut up.”

“As m’lady commands,” he grinned, galloping ahead when she turned her glare onto him.

Arya made to follow him for a moment before she faltered, spotting a sigil a good distance west of them. She squinted to get a better look at it, not recognizing the colors of the banner.

“Oi, Gendry,” she called out. When her traveling companion slowed to a stop, she gestured in the general direction of the flag. “What’s a burning tree on a grey banner mean?”

Gendry shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? It just looks like a tree to me.”

He made a good point. If she didn’t recognize the banner after years of Maester Luwin’s lessons, it was doubtful that Gendry would after none.

They chose to ignore it for the time being.

It was probably just one of House Tully’s vassal houses that Arya never bothered learning about. They were still in the Riverlands, so that seemed to be the most obvious choice.

When they encountered a peasant and his father on the road half a day later, she was beginning to get a little nervous. They got the pair’s attention quickly enough by riding up to them cautiously, hands in the air to prove that they meant them no harm.

“How far away’s Wendish Town from here?” Arya asked, not bothering with pleasantries. Though she felt Gendry staring at her incredulously for her brashness, she learned enough from the Hound that wasting time with small talk could make all the difference between whether she lived or died. The sooner they moved on, the better. “We’re a bit lost.”

The smaller one blinked, his mop of dirty blond hair falling into his eyes as he turned to look up to his father. “What’s Wendish Town?” The boy asked mindlessly before coughing into the sleeve of his cotton tunic, holding onto the mane of their donkey like a doll.

“M’ not sure what you mean, lass,” the father raised his hand to his forehead to act as a visor against the sun. “This here’s the Tumblestone. You’ll be at Nunn’s Deep before long.”

“What?” Arya’s voice came out hoarser than she would have liked it too. Nunn’s Deep was near the Crag from what she remembered. They couldn’t be near the Crag, not when they had just been riding along the river. “No, we’re on the Red Fork. Wendish Town’s just ahead of us.”

The grim man huffed a laugh. “We’re in the Westerlands, I’m ‘fraid. Sorry to tell you, but-”

“The Westerlands?” Gendry interrupted right as Arya swiveled her head over to see what he made of this. “No, there’s got to be some kind of mistake. We’re in the Riverlands.”

The passerby looked annoyed with them now. “I’m certain of it. Would swear my ass’ life on it, at that. I grew up here m’whole life. I think I’d know if we were in the bloody Riverlands.”

She paused for a moment. Tumblestone was west of Riverrun. The Red Fork was south of it. Which bridge had they taken again? West or south?

Arya had never felt so stupid in her entire life.

“The place you wanna go to’s east,” the man pointed behind them unhelpfully. “I’m heading to Riverrun m’self for safe haven but if you wanna join us-”

“There’s no need,” Gendry cut in with a warning smile. “We’re heading south anyways. Thank you for the offer, though. We’ll be on our way if it please you.”

The peasant sighed, far less suspicious than Arya would have been had the roles been reversed. “Alright then. Come now, Gared. We’ve got a few days yet ahead of us.”

“Days?” The little boy groaned, his little shoulders slumping as his father lifted him back atop their donkey. The child was still pouting when the pair set off toward the very place Arya had just fled but turned around to wave at them regardless. “Seven blessings on you.”

Once they were out of hearing range, Arya veered Maegor off to the side and leaped off of him, tying his reins to a tree in the process of moving. She turned on Gendry who was still unhorsing his own unnamed mount. “Maybe I’ll call her Tumblestone,” he jested, unprepared for the panic that had just begun setting into Arya’s head. “Seems fitting now that we’re here, don’t you think?”

“What are we supposed to do now?” Arya’s voice was pinched. “What if he tells them he saw us here? And he knows where we’re headed too, shit, shit, _shit_!”

“Calm down,” Gendry rolled his eyes as he followed Arya’s lead and tied his horse to a tree of its own. He reached for his water skin with a steady hand, unimpressed by her theatrics. Instead of drinking it himself, he poured some into his cupped hands for the mare and let her drink from them. “We’re just two more travelers on the road, Arya. He didn’t know who we were.”

“You think he won’t know when he sees every Tully and Stark soldier my uncle’s got to spare looking for me?” Arya demanded, taking three deep strides forward to yell at him a bit quieter. If they found them, she was done for. “We’ll get caught if we go back and then it’ll all have been for nothing!”

“Seven hells, Arya, it’ll be worse for us if we go deeper into Lannister territory than we already are,” Gendry reached for her arm to get her to look at him. “We’ll be fine. We just need to head back, go south, and we’ll be at the Red Fork in no time. If anything, it’ll throw the men off.”

She made a face. “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, do you have a better one for me?” Gendry ran a hand through his black hair, glaring at Arya as if she was the bane of her existence and not someone he’d begged to follow on her escape mission. His voice was biting when he spoke next, laced with spite as if her dismissal had truly hurt him. “It’s either east or west, Arya. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re surrounded by rocks and mountains. We’ve got two options here.”

Thinking of Bran, Arya spoke without thinking. “We could… climb…”

“Climb?” Gendry reeled back and barked a laugh. “And you called _my_ idea stupid?”

She flushed at his condescension. “It _is_ stupid. We can’t just go back!”

“Better than trying to scale a fucking mountain,” Gendry laughed at her openly now, to which Arya marched over to him and stomped on his foot as hard as she could manage.

He didn’t do so much as yelp at the contact, instead just raising his brows and smirking at her in that way he did.

It was _so_ irritating when he made that face and smiled that smile.

She continued fuming at him even when he retreated to pull something out of his satchel. When he returned to her, she had half a mind to tell him to fuck off but refrained as soon as she saw that he was clutching something in his hands. She eyed it warily, expecting some kind of bug or cow pie to be thrown at her, and had to blink back her shock when he uncovered a pastry.

“I thought we ran out of those yesterday,” Arya accused him with a blend of outrage and warmth flooding through her bones. She glared down at the pastry, brown and cold, but still flaking at the crust. “You were saving it for yourself, weren’t you, you prick?”

He exhaled a long sigh, “if you don’t take it, I’m eating it myself.”

Arya grabbed the cake from him begrudgingly, cracking it into two halves before returning one to Gendry’s hands.

She didn’t offer any apologies and he didn’t ask for one, but the sentiment in itself was enough for them to come to a momentary truce.

And then they were off again.

They rode for three days before the hills dipped, keeping as far from the riverside as they could manage to get.

By the time evening came upon them, they set up camp near a particularly large rock; it was big enough to conceal them if they received any unwelcome guests.

A few hours into sleeping, Arya was awoken by the sound of drunken laughter.

She sat straight up from the small pile of leaves that she gathered for a pathetic excuse at a pillow and frantically crawled over to where Gendry was laying on his side.

He was splayed out adjacent to the logs that they had used for a fireplace earlier. She shook him wildly, ready to take their horses and make a run for it if he could get his lazy ass up before they got caught.

“Gendry,” Arya hissed through her teeth, prodding at his arm hard enough to hurt.

He squeezed his eyes shut, determined to ignore Arya in favor of some more sleep.

“Wake up, idiot,” she pinched at his arm. “There are people here.”

He shot up as if stung by a bee, eyes comically wide. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

Arya shushed him, kneeling on the ground beside him so that they were as concealed as they could be in the grass. She bent her head like a cat feeling out its prey, watching on as a man wearing plate mail danced along the road with a pint of ale in his hand. She was just about to make a run for it when Gendry’s hand closed around her wrist. “Wait,” he whispered.

The man laughed as four others ran up to him, rushing to hold him up and grab his drink from his hands. “C’mon Rodrik,” one of the men grunted. “We’ve got places to be, you fookin’ oaf.”

“Aye,” another with a distinctly Northern accent chimed in. “Better things for us to be doing than lugging your sorry arse around. Hurry up before we throw you in the river and call it an accident.”

“What?” The drunk one stumbled again, caught by half a dozen hands.

“He’s useless in this state,” the first one sighed, struggling to prop up his mate as he swayed from side to side. “We ought to make camp and let him sleep it off.”

“We’ve already taken nine breaks,” the quietest of the lot complained. “The Blackfish’ll have our heads if we’re any later than we already are. Tie him to his horse and be done with it.”

“He’s right. With the siege coming up, the king’s got to have every fighting man with him.”

“Aye, Eddison told me himself that over a thousand of his men burned on the Red Fork when the Young Wolf met those bastards on the battlefield. And that was just _his_ men.”

Arya could hear shuffling, shrinking closer to Gendry’s side as the men all discussed it amongst themselves. After a few arguments here and a drunken shout of ‘the King in the North’ there, they mounted their horses and rode off, heading farther along the eastern riverbank.

Leaning back, Arya released a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding. When she thumped right against Gendry’s chest, the intimacy of the position became glaringly obvious to them both. She hadn’t been this close to him since they were at Acorn Hall, but even that felt different somehow.

This felt... she couldn’t be sure what she thought it felt like. She shook the strange thoughts from her head as soon as they nestled their way in there. It was all in her head. What was she thinking, anyways? He was _Gendry._

These were the kinds of thoughts Sansa probably had when she was younger and off in her own rose-tinted world. Even now, Sansa had her pretty dresses and love letters and sewed krakens into any scrap of fabric she could get a hold of; that wasn’t Arya.

So what if she was touching a boy? And so what if he smelled like pine cones and freshwater? And so _what_ if her heart sped up the tiniest fraction when he leaned into her?

Gendry drew a sharp breath at the contact but made no move to extract her from the position until Robb’s bannermen were long gone.

He didn’t meet her eyes when he practically fell to the ground in a frenzied attempt to get up on his feet, nor did he look at her a few moments afterward when he turned on his back so he could get some more sleep.

The next few days weren’t much different than before.

Arya and Gendry always had something or another to talk about, whether it was his old master armorer back in the capital or about what her family had been like before the fat king came and ruined everything. She told him about Jon at Castle Black most of all, about how much she missed him and wished to see him again someday.

There was rarely a day that went by that she didn’t think of Jon. If girls were allowed at the Wall, she would have just gone there in the first place. Jon would never let her be sold off to some lord, even if it were the bloody king; he would protect her, no matter what the cost was to him.

But Jon wasn’t here.

Arya grimaced as she adjusted in her saddle, her thighs aching from all the time she had spent on horseback. They were nearing the Red Fork now, but there was something strange in the air. It was snowing lightly which was odd. Winter wasn’t supposed to come for years yet, and it rarely got cold this far south.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t chilly in the slightest bit.

When they got close enough to get a whiff of the air, it took everything in Arya not to gag at the taste of smoke and burnt bodies in her lungs. It was everywhere.

This wasn’t snow; it was ash.

Gendry reacted faster than Arya did, charging ahead of her to investigate the area. He cursed as Tumblestone trotted over top a pile of charred bones on the ground, looking positively sickened at the sight of the bodies.

It didn’t affect Arya so much, but the smell was so rancid that she had to plug her nose to get through it. It wasn’t very difficult to deduce what the culprit behind this slaughter was: fire.

She panicked for a moment, recalling that Robb once mentioned some form of green fire that the Lannisters used to destroy Stannis Baratheon’s forces during the first siege of King’s Landing. If he had gotten hurt -or worse, died- here, she didn’t think she would be able to keep this up.

Maegor’s hoof nearly got caught up in a singed Lannister banner on the ground, the crimson and gold of the tattered fabric melding with black soot.

Then she realized what had truly happened here.

“Dragons,” she breathed, blinking rapidly at the field of white-and-black, unused to not seeing the greens and yellows that were typically native to the region. She guided Maegor along the unspoiled path, shaking her head clean of the powder that was already beginning to stick to it.

Her hair was getting too long, too unmanageable without a doting mother, sister, and servants to force her to sit still while they brushed and styled it. It was already beginning to knot up, which wouldn’t bode well for her if she hoped to get the ash residue out of her hair later on.

Perhaps she would swipe some shears from a marketplace and cut it for herself, right at the shoulders.

“Seven hells,” Gendry breathed, his eyes wide as he took the entire battlefield in. The burnt area was so vast that it was taking them an unsettling amount of time to get through it.

She toyed with the coin purse in her pocket as she padded along with him. She had probably stolen more from her grand-uncle than she needed, but she could never be too careful. At least this would last them a few moons as well as passage to… well, wherever they could get to, really.

“Let’s cross the bridge at Wendish Town, first chance we get,” Arya murmured just loud enough for Gendry to hear once the flurry of demented snow had ceased and the ground beneath them was green and muddy once more. She frowned when he didn’t reply immediately. “Alright?”

“I thought we were stopping there,” Gendry sounded a little disappointed, probably hoping to get to sleep in a real bed for once. Arya rolled her eyes at him with exasperation.

For all that he called her rich and prissy, he seemed to have a harder time adjusting to life in the wilderness than her.

“That’s probably the first place they’re looking for us,” Arya worried her lower lip in her mouth, teeth digging into it in a nervous habit she had picked back up during the war. “We can’t afford to stay too long, especially with Robb’s army off near Riverrun.”

“Hold on. How d’you know there’s a bridge there?” Gendry genuinely sounded doubtful that there would be one, though she couldn’t imagine why. There had to be a bridge on the riverbank _somewhere_.

She furrowed her brows. “It’s a river. Of course there’s a bridge there.”

“So there might _not_ be a bridge there,” he countered, frowning from atop his horse.

Arya tried not to gnash her teeth together as Maegor trampled over a sea of dandelions beneath his hooves.

“Don’t be an idiot. There’s a town right across the river from it,” she stated matter-of-factly. “How else would people get across? There’s got to be a bridge there somewhere. I’m betting it’s in the town.”

Gendry made a clicking sound with his tongue and sighed like dealing with her was a trial of its own. His eyes glinted with amusement. “If there’s no bridge, I’m never going to let you hear the end of it.”

“Then it’s a good thing that there’s a bridge there, isn’t it?”

There ended up being a bridge at Wendish Town, to Arya’s satisfaction.

They got all the way to Stoney Sept when word reached them that Daenerys Targaryen had taken King’s Landing with Arya’s brother at her side. The city had surrendered to a new queen.


	3. we've become echoes

Arya snuck through the back door of the whorehouse, holding her breath at the sounds of thumping that came from the first door she walked past.

A loud series of moans accompanied the thudding, and a deep secondhand embarrassment settled in the pit of her stomach. She was not so innocent that she didn’t know what those noises meant, especially in an establishment like this.

They had found lodgings at this brothel almost a fortnight ago, finding it nestled between two narrow alleys in the heart of Flea Bottom.

It had taken a bit of convincing to get the owner to let them stay here, but every inn in the city seemed to be overflowing with commoners desperately trying to size the new queen up for themselves. They were given their own rooms at the very top floor of the building, quaint and a bit moldy, but decent lodgings all the same.

At only eight coppers a night it was a steal, the nature of the place be damned.

She tiptoed along the wooden floorboard, careful not to draw any attention to herself by stepping on a creaking stair or tripping over her own feet. She doubted anyone would care if they saw her sneaking about at this hour of the night, but her appearance would raise some unwanted questions, ones that she wouldn’t be able to answer.

Almost there.

Arya quite liked it here, no matter the taboo of being a highborn girl at a brothel.

Her mother would lose her mind at the sight of her youngest daughter cavorting about with commoners and whores, but she enjoyed their company far more than any of the stuffy little lords and ladies that had been brought to Winterfell to keep her company.

She scrunched her nose up in remembrance of Jeyne and Beth.

 _Arya Underfoot_ , they would jeer at her while the Sansa of old giggled, _Arya Horseface_.

The women here were always kind to her. They asked her questions about her life and interests, offered her peach nectar and pomegranate juice at dinner, and genuinely seemed to enjoy her company rather than just tolerating it. They treated her like a sister or daughter rather than a burden or an intruder in their home.

Placing a hand on the doorknob, Arya took care to open it without making much noise. She licked her lips without thinking and cringed at the coppery taste in her mouth.

Slinking into the room, Arya immediately closed her door behind her and locked it in case anyone thought to stumble in there in a drunken stupor. It didn’t happen often, but inebriated brothel goers didn’t seem to know the difference between rooms or women when they had their pick of them. 

She had been planning this for weeks, long before she and Gendry had even crossed the border of the crownlands. As soon as her soft-spoken sister looked at her with haunted eyes and a twisted smile, gifting her with the names of seven knights, she knew what she had to do. Their names were practically etched into Arya’s skin the moment they were spoken aloud, and there was only one way to scrub them off of her.

It was why she came here in the first place rather than just fleeing to the Crag and getting on the first ship she saw. It was more dangerous but necessary.

She had a duty to her sister and family; no matter where she was and what false names she wore, she would always be a Stark. Wolves always protected each other, even when their pack was fractured and strewn apart.

It had been easier to get into the dungeons than she anticipated.

Most of the Dragon Queen’s guard were busying themselves with protecting their queen, their allies, or their noble hostages. No one was all that bothered over a few disgraced knights when they had royalty and known traitors to worry about.

She shoved her boots off and started toward the bed when saw him.

“Where were you?” Gendry’s voice pierced the stillness of the room.

He was sitting at the foot of her bed beside the full water basin that she prepared in anticipation for tonight, his hands clasped in front of him and worried lines mapping his forehead. It looked like he had been here for hours on end.

Arya paused, loose strands of hair falling into her eyes. “Your room’s down the hall.”

He stood up to get a better look at her, the dull candlelight of the room not doing nearly enough to conceal her appearance from him. Shit.

Gendry’s eyes widened with horror as if he truly didn’t know who she was now, who the Lannisters turned her into when they took her father’s head, who she might have always been fated to become deep within her aching soul. “Is that blood?”

_Mercy, mercy, mercy, please._

“I got into a fight,” Arya breezed past him, rubbing the back of her hand over her brow to wipe the evidence away to no avail. “It’s all mine so you can stop your worrying.”

Gendry followed her with his eyes, a shadow of doubt and a bit of fear flickering in his eyes, even in the low light of the lone candle in the room. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to,” she snapped haughtily. “I don’t answer to you.”

_His cries were as sweet on his lips as the gurgling sound he made when she glided her blade across his throat. One more name crossed off her list._

“I’m taking my clothes off now,” Arya informed him as she began unbuttoning her jerkin. She wore her plainest clothes for the occasion, an ensemble that wouldn’t be missed once she burned it. Death was too messy for finery. “Turn around.”

He didn’t comply, instead crossing his arms over his chest. “Whose blood is that, Arya?”

Indignation bubbled up within her at all of his questions. Couldn’t he just once do what she told him to do without arguing? Arya slipped the jacket off and sat beside the basin, trying not to let her irritation show on her face.

She hadn’t told him about this for a reason and he was proving her right for it by ruining her night. She was exhausted and spent from all the running and murdering, and he wasn’t helping the situation by acting like an overbearing idiot. 

_A ragged draw of breath. He glared up at her, eyes steeled beneath his bushy brows._

Arya sighed as she dipped her cloth into the container and pressed it against her temple. She needed to get herself cleaned up but she couldn’t do that while he was hovering over her, eyes blazing like she was the most infuriating person he ever met.

The cool water felt like relief against her skin, red-infused droplets dripping onto her tunic, cleansing her of her sins, of her grime, of her worries. She scrubbed at her face until it felt raw, an uncomfortable silence pervading the room when she didn’t speak.

After a few tense minutes, she broke it.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” she smiled wryly, eyes returning to Gendry’s unreadable ones. “It’s not your problem so shove off and drop it.”

_Just get it over with._

“How is it not my problem?” Gendry ground his teeth as Arya rolled up her sleeves and took her sweet time scrubbing at her arms. “You run off in the middle of the night, come back covered in blood, and it’s not my problem?”

_His blood squirted in all directions and another debt was paid._

“Exactly,” Arya smirked at him, the cloth drenched in Meryn Trant’s blood as she wrung it out over the water basin.

“Arya.” His voice was sharp. “You—”

“I’ll tell you in the morning, alright?” She was tired of this interrogation. Gendry wasn’t her keeper. Why had he even been waiting for her to come back anyhow? She was a woman grown and it was her right to go off in the middle of the night if she wanted to. Perhaps she would have to spell it out for him. “Get out of my room already.”

_The last one bleated like a squealing hog when she carved him open, cursing her out as he died on the cold stone and piss covered ground._

He looked like he didn’t recognize her, his hard stare festering deep in her soul.

His black hair had grown out some, though it suited him. He had changed since they first met on the road, not so far from where they were now. Did she look different too?

She bristled under his scrutiny and cringed worse when the light glinted off his face just enough that she could see the hurt flickering in his eyes.

“I don’t want you here, Gendry.”

Arya couldn’t look at him when she said the words but the atmosphere of the room shifted enough that she knew she wounded him.

Quietly, he unbolted the latch on the door and left her to her thoughts.

She released a breath that she didn’t know she was holding and looked down at her warped reflection in the water basin beneath her.

He didn’t join her for breakfast the next morning, or the day after that.

Arya couldn’t be sure where he was, but her heart thrummed hotly with anger at the thought of having to explain herself to him. Who did Gendry think he was that he thought she should tell him _everything_ she got up to?

He wasn’t entitled to every part of her life, the stubborn ass.

Clara asked her about him on the third night that he neglected to return to the brothel.

“Where’s your man been at lately?” The golden-haired escort splayed herself across the chaise in their parlor. “Haven’t seen him ‘round here much. A real shame if you ask me.”

Arya opened her mouth to correct Clara, the words readied on her lips- he wasn’t _her_ man, least of all her problem. If he wanted to pout to himself, that was his choice.

“S’that the handsome one?” Another girl asked, adjusting the straps of her flimsy dress as she strode over to apply more rouge to her cheeks. “With the fuck-me eyes?”

She was pretty with her dark hair and pouty lips but looked disconcertingly young to be working here. She had to be six and ten at the oldest, and that was a generous assumption by Arya’s standards.

Two more women giggled from off to the side, braiding each other’s hair in anticipation for their next clients.

Arya couldn’t imagine having to do their line of work. She had never even been kissed, much less tried sleeping with someone. No one piqued her interest anyways. 

All she knew about it was what Sansa divulged to her that one evening in their old chambers in Riverrun, whispering about how she had given her maidenhead to _Theon_ of all people and fancied herself in love with him no matter what Mother or Robb said.

_“He cupped my cheek and stared into my eyes and gods, Arya,” Sansa had gushed, holding Arya’s hand like she was confiding in a true friend rather than her little sister, a delicate blush warming her cheeks. “My heart never felt so full in my entire life."_

_“That’s it? Your heart felt full?” Arya interrupted, her brows scrunched together with confusion at the description. That didn’t sound like much. “Are you sure you did it right?”_

_“Of course I did it right, idiot,” Sansa snapped, embarrassed at the insinuation before her face softened once more. She had a dreamy look in her eyes as she threw herself back onto the bed with a lovelorn sigh. “When you find someone you love someday, you’ll understand. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I can’t stop thinking about him and how he looked at me. It was so... consuming. I don't know how else to describe it.”_

_Yuck. Hearing her sister talk about anyone that way made her sick to her stomach, but it was a thousand times worse knowing the context behind it. She never would have believed that Theon with his smug smile and lewd jokes could manage to get Sansa to fall in love with him, but here her sister was, fawning over their family's ward like she hadn't spent her entire life decidedly_ not _noticing him._

_“I still can’t believe it,” Arya snickered as she moved back to her own bed, unable to help but take another jab at her sister despite her curiosity. Did it hurt? How long did it take? Did she feel any different afterward? “Theon? Really?”_

_“Shut up, Arya,” Sansa grumbled, scowling at her from the other side of the room._

From what she had seen, a great lot of Clara’s clients seemed to be nasty old men with rotting teeth or frustrated gold cloaks looking for a tumble when they were off duty. She didn't know how the woman could stand it.

“You see any other men around here?” Clara shot back at the other woman, her tone light and teasing as ever. For the most part, only women from the establishment were allowed into the back rooms. Them, children, and now Arya and Gendry for however long they would stay in King’s Landing. “You’re a lucky girl. If I had a man like that chasing after me…” she whistled. “You _know_ that boy’s got a big cock.”

Arya blinked as the other girls murmured her agreements, her hands clammy while the two women gossiped about Gendry like he was a slab of meat.

She couldn’t stop herself from asking the glaring question, wondering how they could possibly know something like that unless they had seen it for themselves.

The thought made her stomach clench, though that might have just been last night’s rancid chicken coming back up. “How?”

“Doesn’t he?” Daisy asked her curiously as she fluffed her freshly-dyed auburn hair in front of the mirror. She met Arya’s eyes through her reflection, winking salaciously at her. “You’re the expert here, love. No need to be shy with us.”

Arya flushed and Clara laughed aloud from the couch, turning over to lay on her side. “Don’t torture the girl. Look at the poor thing, she’s a hair away from fainting.”

“Am not!” Arya insisted, looking away in a poor attempt to conceal her embarrassment. Almost forgetting herself, she tried to salvage the situation. “Besides, he’s not _mine_. He’s just a friend. I don’t know where he’s gotten off to, but he’ll be back soon enough.”

“Just a friend?” Daisy repeated skeptically, her voice high as a bell. Another one of the girls tittered at the comment like she knew something Arya didn’t. “Does he know that?”

“Can I have a go at him then?” A girl with long dark curls entered the room, swaying her hips in a way that had even Arya entranced for a moment. “If he’s free for the taking.”

Arya’s heart was caught in her throat and for a moment, she pictured it; Gendry holding this girl’s face and staring into her hazel eyes, the same stupidly dazed look on his face that Sansa got when she talked about how full her heart felt with her lover.

Would he want that with this girl?

Suddenly, Arya wanted to run her sword through something.

“I don’t care what he does,” she found herself saying, hot flashes of _something_ crawling underneath her skin. “Go ask him yourself if you want him so bad.”

“Maybe I will,” the girl smirked at Arya as if mocking her. “Maybe I won’t.”

“I reckon you’re not the type he fancies, Elinor” Clara twirled a lock of straw-colored hair between her fingers, looking spectacularly bored. “Don’t you think, Nan?”

She was talking to her.

Arya almost forgot which false name she used for herself here and felt her tongue heavy in her mouth as she attempted to respond. “I wouldn’t know.”

And that was that.

Arya waited another few hours before she gave up on ignoring him, her concern eventually outweighing her adamance to wait for him to come back.

If he was dead in a ditch somewhere, she ought to know about it.

She found him at the tavern across the street a few hours later, properly drunk if the way he spilled his tankard to the ground upon seeing her was any indication.

“Having fun?” Arya asked in a monotone as she slid into the seat across from him, meeting his inquisitive eyes with her own. The place was packed with rowdy men, all of them dancing to a familiar tune that she could only assume was a folk song.

She was a touch too stubborn to apologize to him -because she was _right_ \- but hoped that buying him some food could serve as a compromise.

When a serving girl rushed over to clean up the remnants of his ale, Arya asked her for a bit of water and boiled beef with horseradish. It would cost a pretty penny but if it would put an end to this nonsense, Arya would gladly pay the price three times over.

She plopped a handful of coins into the server’s hand before turning back to Gendry who was watching the interaction carefully. She squared her shoulders and met his gaze, bracing herself for whatever it was that he wanted to say to her.

The fury she expected from him never came.

“Sometimes I feel like I know you better than I know myself,” Gendry blurted out, throwing her for a loop with his words. “Other times, you’re a complete stranger to me.”

That hurt more than she thought it would.

“What if you got killed, Arya? And I woke up one day and you were just _gone_?” His voice cracked on the word and Arya almost thought she had been thrown into a dream of some sort. He had never been this vulnerable with her before, but in all fairness, he had never been this drunk in front of her either. “What would I have done then?”

“You didn’t need to be involved,” Arya wrung her hands together uncomfortably, shifting under the weight of his gaze. _He’s angry because he cares_ , she heard her mother’s voice in her head, explaining the situation to her like she was a child. “It was for my list.”

“The bells would be ringing if you killed the king,” Gendry responded numbly. He didn’t look away from her when she got distracted by a movement to her left, watching on as two tankards full of water were set in front of them.

Arya laughed despite herself, reaching for the handle to drink from it. “I’d have been caught if I tried to kill Joffrey,” she shook her head, the idea silly to her as she imagined what would become of that yellow-haired shit now that he was locked up. The Dragon Queen would do away with him and the queen before long. “I’m not stupid.”

“Who then?” He cracked a small smile, a sure sign that she was beginning to break through his walls. Perhaps the alcohol had loosened his obstinance somewhat, but she didn’t care about semantics so long as he wasn’t scowling at her anymore.

“His white cloaks,” Arya responded lowly, glancing around her in case someone was listening in. It was hard to describe it when curious ears could be clinging to her every word, just waiting for her to say something incriminating that the spymaster could use against her. The explanation she gave was curt and simple. “They hurt my sister.”

“And they just let you in?” Gendry asked incredulously, his words tangled as he tried to regain some sense of sobriety. “No questions asked? No ‘what’s this little girl in breeches want with the elite knights we’ve got locked up in the dungeons’?”

A plate was set in front of them and her mouth immediately watered at the sight of it.

She snatched a slice of beef with nimble fingers and tossed the prize into her mouth, chewing at the slightly burnt meat with great enthusiasm. It tasted better than anything she’d eaten in moons, even beating out the grazed boar they had at Stoney Sept.

“I didn’t ask,” Arya licked the grease off her fingers before reaching for another scrap of meat. “I just pretended I belonged there, slipped in with some servants, and paid them a visit once it was dark. No one cares about guards when there’s two kings and three queens to look after. I snuck in, slit their throats, and left. B’sides, I’m not _that_ little.” 

Saying the words out loud seemed to make them more real. Gendry leaned back in his seat, blinking rapidly as he absorbed her words.

She didn’t know why he was being such a pansy about this; it wasn’t like he hadn’t killed before. He told her as much when he first showed up at Riverrun from the crossroads after spending years apart, a shadow behind his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Yes, you are,” Gendry didn’t address the killing bit of their conversation, instead poking fun at her. “You’re a tiny thing. A right runt if I’ve ever seen one.”

Arya’s face burned, inexplicably fixated on the comments the girls at the whorehouse made about him when he wasn’t around. “I’m seven-and-ten, you prick, not twelve.”

“Could have fooled me.” Gendry rolled his eyes, lifting his tankard back up to his lips. “Hard to tell when you haven’t grown an inch since we met.”

Resisting the urge to throw her food at him, she settled for waving the serving girl over and asking for ale this time. He was looking at her oddly as if to say _but you don’t like ale_ , so she made sure to smile into her drink when she took her first few gulps.

It tasted heinous but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being right, even if he technically hadn’t even said anything about it at all.

“I can’t stay here much longer,” Arya eventually spoke up, her tone slightly wistful. As close as she was to her brother and sister now, she couldn’t risk being found by them. She almost ruined it all by knocking on Sansa’s door, drenched in blood as if she could have done anything to remedy the situation. Robb made an oath to the Freys and Sansa was loyal to their brother. She couldn’t trust either of them with her life anymore.

Looking at him now, it occurred to Arya that Gendry might want to stay here. He left the first time because he was sold to the Night’s Watch, but Flea Bottom was his home.

Though traveling alone was the plan she had initially been hoping for, she couldn’t help but feel a little torn up about leaving him behind. She recalled doing it the first time, proclaiming that _she_ could be his family only to be shot down with vague words about being his lady and a sad smile thrown her way.

She wouldn’t force him to follow her but a part of her dared to hope that he wouldn’t want to part with her either. She had gotten used to him no matter how much of a thorn he was in her side. It was difficult to imagine her life without him now that she was trying to let him go.

“Alright then.” Gendry merely sighed into his drink. “Where are we going?”


	4. fallen to the dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the super long break but i recently moved states and school is starting up soon, so updates are gonna be a little slower than they were over the summer! thank you to everyone who's been following along!

With a notable lack of anything fun to do, traveling along the kingsroad quickly got tiring.

Nobody seemed to be looking for them with the coronation coming up. The sheer number of high lords on their horses and ladies in their uppity painted carriages that they passed along the way was mind-boggling, and quite frankly, a little comical. They hardly even met Arya’s eyes as they passed her on the road, likely pegging her for a commoner who would beg them for grain if they offered her even a drop of kindness.

To them, a lowborn life wasn’t worth even a smidgen of whichever old fart or another led their pitiful house.

She eyed Gendry humming some song to himself from atop his horse, considerably more relaxed now that they had escaped the notice of most of the men who had been scouring the Riverlands for Arya just two moons prior. There wasn’t much reason for them to think Arya would be in the crownlands anyways, so they were likely still combing through the north-west looking for her.

They had worse to worry about than her now that Westeros had a new queen whose wrath was being whispered about on every end of the Seven Kingdoms; all of them were rushing to the South to try to kiss her ass enough to earn her favor and profit as much as they could off the war.

That’s all any of them cared about, anyway: castles, titles, and gold. Even her own mother was ready to pack her off and send her to the Freys to make little weasel-faced babes.

Even if it didn’t happen for years yet, it would have happened eventually if she stayed and allowed herself to be bartered for a bridge as Robb had done.

Her intended probably wouldn’t even spare her a glance if he saw her on the road now, clad in tattered clothes with her dirty hair drawn back. He wouldn’t even think of her as a person, let alone the little princess he probably thought her to be.

Gendry’s quiet singing persisted, not entirely unpleasant to the ears. He wasn’t a bard for certain, but the sound of his voice was comforting. She looked at him, her lips quirking upward as he bobbed his head along with the tune.

 _He’s worth a thousand Elmar Freys_ , Arya thought to herself, _and then some_.

Sensing her eyes on him, Gendry turned his head to meet her gaze to which she leveled her stare, unsure of why it had suddenly become so difficult to look away.

He bristled a little bit at the scrutiny and his horse whinnied with alarm and stopped in its place, suddenly skittish after being calm for hours. “Do I have something on my face?”

Arya shrugged coyly, hoping to turn this around so that he would be the embarrassed party here instead. She had a number of biting remarks prepared on her lips ranging from ‘your beard’s patchy’ to ‘you need a haircut’ when a screech sounded from a distance behind them.

This time, Maegor protested against her own grip to which Arya realized what it was that spooked his horses into such a panic earlier. She struggled to keep her mount from tearing back but just managed to get him under control.

“Fuck,” she breathed out as she heard the beating of wings accompanying the sound.

Gendry’s jaw slackened when he finally caught onto what was happening, driving his horse forward in front of Arya as if he could somehow shield her from dragonfire if the creature thought to roast them alive.

A dragon soared through the sky over their heads, its yellow wings extended out in a monstrous gesture that shadowed the ground underneath it.

It was a pale gold color, bigger than Arya could have ever imagined; it was like death itself was advancing upon them, and all she could hear aside from the ringing in her head was her old water dancing instructor’s parting advice to her, comforting her in the face of possible annihilation.

Before ten seconds had lapsed, the dragon had passed them over, continuing on its course across the crownlands. It was free and wild, the epitome of everything Arya had dreamed dragons would be like from the time that she was a girl.

Gods, what she wouldn’t give to ride such a creature. Tightening her hands around the reins of Maegor, Arya released a breath that she didn’t realize she had been holding.

“Bloody hell!” Gendry shouted, sounding rather winded as he turned back to Arya. His eyes were blown wide as they took in her awestruck expression. “Did you see that?”

When she didn’t answer, Gendry urged his horse to trot over to her but found that it was stiff with fright and refused to move. He waited for another moment. “Arya?” 

“I saw it,” Arya murmured, still staring off after the dragon, willing it to come back so she could take another look at it and be sure that she hadn’t been dreaming.

* * *

Maidenpool wasn’t half as bad as Arya feared it would be. With little fighting left in the region, it almost looked like a regular town again.

As quaint as the place was, Arya found herself at the harbor, arguing passionately with the sailor who thought to rob them blind of their coin simply because they were young travelers. She wouldn’t pay a small fortune just for the pleasure of riding in a dreary cabin for a fortnight.

“Milady, matters of economics may not be your strong suit but I-”

“No one’s ever paid three hundred gold dragons to sail to Essos,” Arya informed the man matter-of-factly, not minding that she was making a scene when a couple merchants to the man’s left glanced over at them.

Let them look– she would not be swindled by some half-balding man with three rotted teeth, especially considering his eyes seemed to wander further southward than necessary even as he spoke condescendingly to Arya. 

“Times are tough,” he shrugged, still trying to pitch his sale as if it wasn’t the most ridiculous price to pay for a trip across the Narrow Sea. It was out of pure anger that Arya had allowed this conversation to go on as long as it did. “Rates change all the time, ‘specially in my line of work. If you can’t afford it, I’ll fine me someone who can.”

Arya narrowed her eyes, knowing for a fact that this man was bluffing.

A hand brushed her elbow just as she was about to launch into her next attack on the man’s character, calling her attention elsewhere for a moment.

“What?” She hissed as she spun on her heels to face Gendry, impatient to get back to arguing with the man in question. He was already chatting up another person who had the misfortune of wandering near him, making his aged ship out to be some sort of luxury vessel rather than the rusted rubbish it probably was beneath the deck.

“It’s not worth it, Arya,” Gendry sighed, sounding just as defeated as he had the last time he tried to put an end to the conversation nearly fifteen minutes prior. “We can find someone else to get us a ship. We’re just wasting time here.”

“Who else are we going to get passage from?” Arya burst out, throwing her hands in the air and surveying the area to prove her point. “I can bargain with him, Gendry, just give me some time to get him to see some reason-”

“Arya,” he whined, stepping closer to her so that she could hear him without getting the attention of any passersby. “He’s not going to change his mind."

Arya frowned at him and nearly gave him a piece of her own mind for interrupting her attempts at haggling with a negativity that she only had seen from him a handful of times over the duration of their time together, but a movement at the far corner of the docks caught her attention.

A man was watching her carefully as if scrutinizing her every movement.

For a moment, she mistook him for Syrio Forel and thought to announce herself to him. But Syrio Forel was dead, and ghosts didn’t come back to haunt anyone in real life.

 _If only Father could haunt me_ , Arya thought treacherously. It might be blasphemous not to want her father to find peace in death, but she would have done anything if it meant seeing his smile again, hearing his laugh, just seeing the look in his eyes when she would be presented to him after skipping her lessons, covered in dirt and grime.

The stranger continued staring at her, but not in a lecherous or odd manner; just one that… was. The man looked to be a foreigner by the way he was dressed and had no one to keep him company. It seemed that he was waiting for her, as far-fetched as the notion of it was. He had no way to know that she would be here, and yet…

Jaqen’s coin felt heavy in her pocket, as if something otherworldly was urging her forward to speak with him.

“Where are you going?” Gendry asked, sounding a healthy mix of irritated and exasperated with her, as he often did when she took it upon herself to do strange things. Arya stopped herself from walking around him. He would just follow her if she did. Knowing Gendry, he would likely follow her anyways, even if he didn’t know what was waiting for him on the other side of wherever her curiosities and impulses led her.

She paused, glancing back at the man on the other side of the docks. He hadn’t moved.

Reaching up without thinking anything of it, Arya patted Gendry on the cheek lightly.

He watched her carefully, his throat bobbing as their skin made contact. Perhaps something was caught in his throat. How long has it been since either of them had drank from the waterskin anyhow? Hours? 

“All men must die,” she murmured to Gendry vaguely, lowering her hand and choosing not to dwell at the indecipherable look on his face when she pulled away. It seemed that he expected her to say something else by the way his eyes shuttered slightly, but she couldn’t waste time on trying to figure him out when they had a ship to board.

Ignoring his next line of questioning in favor of darting forward, Arya pushed past a number of locals to get to the man. He was hooded now, as if he planned on disappearing before she got there, but she wouldn’t let him escape before she had a chance to try her luck on what could possibly be her last chance at escaping Westeros.

Arya eventually reached him, finding that his face was oddly expressionless as he smiled down at her. 

* * *

Their chambers weren’t as bad as most ships were.

Arya recalled when her father had given her a tour of one in White Harbor as a child, showing off all the dusty panels and nooks to the ship as if it was a treasure to behold.

At the time, it felt like it might have been; Arya had spent many sewing circles afterward pricking her fingers as she lost herself in her daydreams about becoming a pirate.

Immediately upon closing the door to their cabin shut, Gendry claimed the bed on the far left side of the room in one jumbled mess of a sentence that made more of a ‘whoosh’ sound than words typically made. 

Before long, he was snoring to his heart’s content while Arya crawled under the covers. It was too cold for her to want to strip down to her smallclothes, so she would just have to settle on sleeping in the same filthy clothes she always wore.

Four hours into sharing a cabin, Arya found it had become quite difficult to sleep.

She felt especially aware of the rise and fall of Gendry’s chest and the sound of him inhaling and exhaling in his slumber. She wasn’t sure why it seemed to stick out to her more than the other sounds – though the creaking of the wood, the dripping of a leaking plank onto the ground, and the rocking back and forth and back and forth all bothered her, as well – but she found it unbearable now that it had hit the hour of the wolf.

Another half-hour had passed before Arya twisted in her sheets uncomfortably, unable to think of anything but the minute sounds in the room.

She threw herself onto her side, growling with irritation when the ship rocked them from side to side, nearly throwing her off of her tiny bed in the process. She had all but given up on sleep now.

A rolling sound came from above deck.

Gendry stirred slightly and his breathing sped up, indicating that he was as awake as she was now. Misery loved company, and so Arya felt a bit of relief at having him to keep her entertained in her boredom now that she had spent hours on end awake.

None of them said anything for a moment, but one tilt of her head told her that Gendry was looking in her general direction, despite probably not being able to see her clearly.

“I’ve never been anywhere before, really,” Gendry’s voice sounded through the room, louder than she could have expected with the hours of silence from earlier.

“Me neither,” Arya breathed out into the air, finding that speaking was a good enough distraction from not-sleeping as it was. Thinking about it now, she made for a rather pitiful adventurer; with only the crownlands, the North, and the Riverlands under her belt, she sorely lacked the experience that came with being a true rover.

That would be remedied soon enough. Once they got to Braavos, they could scale all of Essos if they so wished. Jaqen had probably intended for something else when he had given her the coin in the first place, but he had inadvertently saved her again all the same. _We could travel all around the continent if we pleased_ , Arya thought to herself.

She could hear the smile in his voice when Gendry responded to her. “I reckon you’ve been more places than me, at least.”

“Just the North,” Arya murmured. “And I was a girl back then. Haven’t been in years.”

“You’ll have to show it to me someday,” Gendry mumbled, his voice still drowsy with sleep as he shuffled underneath his own blankets. It wouldn’t be long before he fell back asleep, but the conversation was doing wonders to distract Arya from everything that had been ailing her just minutes earlier. “Always wanted to see the snow.”

A soft smile curved at Arya’s lips. “I’d like that.”


	5. let's dance like two shadows

She wasn’t sure what she expected when they got to Braavos.

The fleet of ships native to the city was parked threateningly at the harbor and nearly proved more daunting than the titan statue she had first seen upon docking at the city. It was so different than what she anticipated; so different from anything she had seen before, considering that she knew little of the world outside of Westeros. All she had ever seen was what her father had shown her of the North, and then what she had discovered for herself along the trident, within the capital, and throughout the marshes of the Riverlands.

Arya didn’t enter the House of Black and White despite every urge in her body telling her to; something about the place screamed out to her, whether it was borne from her desire to see what had become of Jaqen H’ghar, or some hidden truth she thought she might uncover about the fate of Syrio Forel, or to find a place that could become a home to her—somewhere to keep her safe through the worst of the fighting in Westeros and the streets of Essos. Whatever it was made it hard to resist, especially when it was so readily accessible.

There was a strange energy to the man who greeted her and Gendry outside of the temple itself, one that seemed to lure her in as much as it set off her suspicions about the nature of this place. Had it not been for Gendry’s presence, she would have considered joining the robed man and delving deep into the mysteries of the alcoves there.

She would not bind her friend to something that he clearly mistrusted, though, especially as he glowered at the statues around the place as if they would turn into demons at a moment’s notice. She didn’t glance backward as they left the area, leaving behind a treasure trove of information that might have been at Arya’s disposal in another life. They never returned to the House of Black and White.

The issue of long-term housing was one that they hadn’t spent much time speaking about until they were settled into a hovel they had haggled for on what appeared to be the red light district. Arya didn’t mind the company of whores, in truth, and the place was as good as any other to settle down in. It was at a reasonable price too, though her coin purse was beginning to empty at a faster pace than they could manage to live off of without getting jobs to support themselves.

There were two beds, a fire pit dug into the ground, a chamberpot to piss, and a cracked mirror built into the walls; it was modest living for certain, but they could have done worse.

By their third week in Braavos, their funds had nearly completely run out.

Gendry had taken to being some mercenary-turned-blacksmith’s apprentice, serving some man named ‘Nail’ at the stalls nearly every day that he could. Finding work had been a bit more difficult for Arya, considering most women around here seemed to make their coin in working at the pleasure houses, becoming seamstresses, or becoming merchants. She didn’t have the talents or the means to do any of that, and for a time, she considered disguising herself as a boy once more to find employment as a groom or squire to any nobility she could locate. Even without her long hair, it would be difficult now to conceal that Arya was a woman grown; she wouldn’t be able to get away with such a deception at this age.

Arya remained unemployed for the first moon that they spent in the city, trying her best to clean up their new home somewhat as they rationed their food and coin, eating only what they had to and using up as few of their resources as they could manage. They kept their heads down and made few friends in Braavos save for each other, mostly out of the fear of making themselves a target in an already chaotic city.

Eventually, she found work selling oysters, clams, and cockles along the seaside. She answered to a merchant named Kaan who gave her a smaller share than she would have expected in Westeros, though the value of Braavosi money seemed to jump with each nobleman who docked at its shores to deal with the Sealord of Braavos. It was no matter considering she pocketed a fair amount she shouldn’t have anyway. She had learned to identify the wealthier patrons by the colors they wore rather than the style like the lords and ladies in King’s Landing favored; purples, greys, and blues were garments she looked out for when looking for some clientele who could be swindled into paying extra.

She adapted to her circumstances quickly. Then again, adapting seemed to be a talent of hers. She would leave their lodgings by the time the sun rose, and she would arrive at home a couple of hours before Gendry did.

It became a routine which was perhaps more foreign to Arya than anything else.

Sometimes he even brought roasted chestnuts back from the forge, given by a merchant they shared a stall with who would have tossed them into a mound of waste otherwise. The little surprises he provided her with kept her from losing her mind as the days passed her by, though her restlessness kept building up.

Sometimes she thought about Jon, the brother she hadn’t seen in six years. She still kept her Needle with her, buried beneath the bulk of her clothes in a chest she had found in the alleyway during their second week in the city.

She wouldn’t risk someone stealing it off her while she was at work, especially with the way pickpockets seemed to operate in Braavos. She wondered if Jon was still as tall as he seemed to be in her memory of when they had parted, if he had grown his beard out at all, if he had found any happiness as a man of the Night’s Watch… she could hear his voice in her head, as clear as when they were children tossing snowballs at each other while her mother yelled for her to come inside.

She missed him more than anything in the world.

“He has the funniest laugh I’ve ever heard,” Arya smiled to herself as she grasped an apple in her hands, twisting it around as she kicked at the covers of Gendry’s bed with her feet. “He’d never let anyone hear it if he could help it, but it was like… d’you know when an old man coughs and it sounds like he’s about to die? Or when you stand too close to the fireplace and all the smoke gets stuck in your throat?”

“ _That’s_ what he sounds like?” Gendry snorted from where he was sitting at the end of the mattress, not minding at all that Arya was destroying the bed he had just made a few hours earlier. They were both still in their work clothes, not bothering to get changed when they could just lounge around the house like bums. At least neither of them were wearing their boots in bed, so the risk of getting dirt and sand in between the covers was greatly diminished. “Like an old man inhaling smoke?”

“Shut up,” Arya tossed the fruit his way, pursing her lips when he caught it without hesitation. “It’s like a wheezing sound. You’ve got to hear it to get it.”

Gendry hollowed his cheeks out and forced a cough, sounding more like a cat hissing than the choked-up laughter Jon used to let slip every now and then. “Like that?”

“No,” she bit back a laugh, knowing better than to give him the satisfaction of thinking he was right and that she was just saying that he wasn’t out of stubbornness. “Not at all.”

And so, the days trickled by.

By the second moon’s turn, they had established a fragile intimacy that Arya was determined to ignore. She hadn’t even noticed that they acted any sort of way around each other until another tenant nearly bulldozed past her on his way out to do whatever it was that burly old men did late at night— _mind your wife, boy_. It was fleeting and shouldn’t have meant much considering it a mistake anyone could have made.

They were a man and a woman living in the same house, who were never seen with anyone but each other. It made sense. It was better they thought they were married than the alternative; even Arya had the sense not to name him as a brother considering that… it would just be strange to think of him as a sibling, she rationalized, remembering the argument they got into when he took her refusal to think of him that way as a dig at his birth. _I have enough brothers_ , she told herself when forced to analyze why the prospect of it caused her so much disturbance.

Gendry had stilled beside her at the drunken man’s proclamation, his face oddly unreadable considering he so often wore his heart on his every expression. He ended up nodding curtly at the man, mechanically unlatching the entrance to their home as if he was made from iron or steel and not flesh and blood.

She followed after him, though she couldn’t think of anything to say as he stripped off his tunic and dived straight into bed. And she certainly didn’t look at the way his muscles rippled underneath the glow of the moonlight streaming into their room through the lone window carved into the wall.

She didn’t want to be married to anyone, so she wasn’t sure why she was harping on the issue. It didn’t mean anything. Truly, it didn’t, because Arya and Gendry would never be married; Elyse and Thom (the names they had taken on now) could be a married couple or a pair of siblings or cousins, for all she cared. The lives they were living now were of two commoners who had little to do with Westeros and its politics; it didn’t matter what people thought of them.

Romance and marriage were for idiots like Sansa, anyhow.

Soon enough, it was like the exchange had never happened at all. They were back to going about their day as usual, often running into each other whenever Arya’s day was slow and permitted her a mosey into the markets. As frustrating as it was to have no one but each other, Arya found that she enjoyed having a friend so dear to her as Gendry. Her trust in him had amplified tenfold since they reunited in Riverrun, and she suspected he felt the same after the near dissolution of their friendship in King’s Landing. He didn’t let her down, even when he had his own affairs to get into order and his own work to do.

He could have lived a quiet life in King’s Landing by his lonesome if he wished it, since she doubted any gold cloaks would be after him now that Cersei Lannister was probably rotting in the ground with the rest of her vile family. If anything, Arya hoped to one day thank the Dragon Queen for ridding the world of the family that killed her father. Robb seemed to like her well enough by the sound of things, so she couldn’t be any worse than Joffrey had been. Stories about her seemed to vary between worshiping and scornful, but she would reserve her judgments until she met the woman for herself. And someday, she would.

Arya was only trapped here now because of two words: Elmar Frey. If she went back, she would be married off and expected to be happy about it, just like every highborn girl did. Eventually, she would be too old to wed, or the Freys would give up on her, or her mother would withdraw the offer, and she would be able to return. Gendry, though...

Gendry could go back whenever he wished, but he never even considered it.

She brought it up to him one day, to which he shrugged and said he was doing what he loved; with no family to take care of and the Brotherhood firmly a thing of his past, he claimed to be happy no matter where he was, be it Westeros, Essos, or Sothoryos for all he cared.

The answer was satisfactory enough for her.

They had made a home for themselves in Braavos. It was small and dirty and cramped, but it was theirs.

By the time they had spent three months in the city, Arya fancied that they should think about getting a cat of some sort to keep the mice out of their hair. She had been eyeing one on the streets for a few days by that point, a pretty little tabby cat with a swishing tail and eyes full of mischief. A part of her heart yearned for the affections that came with a furry friend, though she knew no pet would fill the hole left behind by Nymeria.

She was going to bring it up to Gendry once they were at home and had some food in their bellies. For a while, she had considered just bringing the cat home and hoping for the best, but she realized the flaws with that plan: the cat wasn’t trained, had nowhere to relieve itself, had no toys to play with, and had nothing to stop it from destroying the few possessions they had managed to acquire over the past few moons.

Arya brushed past a trio of courtesans who were entertaining the attentions of some sailor or another who had come in from Westeros, flipping their hair for the man as if he had a coin purse on him at all. She knew enough by the look of his clothes that he didn’t have a penny to his name outside of whatever his lord or lady allowed him to keep.

Taking a not-at-all deserved break from shouting for people to buy her wares, Arya wandered over to the edge of the stone pathway, squinting to get a good look at whatever ship was docked there. They must have been Westerosi, though she wagered it was probably just some envoy from House Tyrell. They came to Braavos to trade for spices and delicacies often, though she heard it whispered by the vendors who shared her route that they had some monopoly scheme planned for the Essosi markets.

It wasn’t any of her business, so she paid it no mind.

There was some sort of bird repeated on a field of green on the sail of the ship closest to her, the sigil as familiar as it was foreign. It definitely wasn’t the Arryn falcoln, though she remembered seeing something similar in her lessons as a girl… could they be from the Saltpans? They had their own docks if Arya’s memory served her right, and a banner that looked as close to this as her memory allowed.

Curiosity overtook her as it often did, and she found herself wandering closer to the pleasure house with little regard for what anyone would think of it. Fucking made people hungry, Arya knew, so she did some of her best business here while the bawds’ backs were turned. The madam here always shooed her off whenever she came in but was busy greeting some armored men outside another ship with the same banners.

The whores outside weren’t as pretty as the ones kept in the brothel, probably due to the intrigue of keeping them hidden away; if a man was already going to take one girl to his bed, he would be more tempted by the prettier, more expensive ones.

She did her very best to look like she belonged, holding her head up high and ambling over to where the pleasure house was most crowded. It was a rather fine-looking building for a whorehouse—at least ten times more posh than any of the ones Arya had ever seen before, even in King’s Landing.

There were silks draped over nearly every window, presumably for privacy, though the sound of some stringed instrument was coming out of the house just as strongly as the smoke from the burning incense was. It was as overwhelming as it was inviting, though she supposed that was the point of brothels.

There was no one minding the door with the madam entertaining the men outside, so she slipped in a bit easier than she usually did when it came to this establishment.

Arya pushed aside the waterfall of beads covering one of the entrances into the place, scowling as a few grabby hands stole a couple of clams off her tray. She merely rolled her eyes and kept going, heading into the more exclusive rooms in hopes of getting a glimpse of whoever it was that was causing such a stir here. She couldn’t help her curiosity, not when there was a chance that she could happen upon some poor fellow who would give her a small fortune in exchange for rancid oysters.

There were as many naked men as there were women, most of whom were being dragged into covert rooms by the women they had paid to keep company with. Arya tried not to laugh at the sight of one man, as turtle-necked as they came with a pathetic little willy hanging out of his unlaced breeches. Instead, she diverted her attention to the younger-looking whores lounging on one of the chaise lounges, one of whom was feeding grapes to the other. The blonde’s breasts were out and the brunette wore what looked suspiciously like a Westerosi handmaiden’s gown, light pink and flowing.

“I’ll take one of ‘em if you don’t mind,” the brown-haired one smirked as she reached for an oyster on Arya’s tray, and then for another to pass along to her nude friend. Arya’s brows furrowed at her distinctive accent, and then at the fact that neither of them even attempted to pay for the delicacies they were greedily consuming. This was no Essosi bed slave. “Be a dear and charge it to Lord Petyr, will you?”

“Where are you from?” Arya blurted out, not having the time for niceties when she would get thrown out of here as soon as she was spotted. The blonde narrowed her eyes at her, so she thought on her feet. “I’m from the Riverlands me-self. Not often I see Westerosi girls ‘round here. Makes me miss home.”

Her accent wasn’t as good as it could be but sounded as close as she could manage to Elinor’s back at Riverrun. It would only make sense for her to be a commoner here.

“What’s a girl like you doing selling clams in Braavos?” The blonde girl asked, cocking her head to the side as if she couldn’t make it out what Arya’s story was.

“A girl like me?” Arya felt beads of sweat forming at her forehead, unable to conceive of how her accent had been so bad that she had been discovered immediately. “I don’t know what you mean.” She ignored the urge to add a ‘milady’ at the end of that, reminding herself that even commoners didn’t address whores like nobility.

“We’re only here ‘cause we have to be,” the brunette stretched her arms out over her head. “Lord Petyr’s clearing all his establishments out so the Dragon Queen doesn’t find out about us. Not respectable work for the Master of Coin’s what he said about it, not that it bothered him when it was King Robert. Think he’s afraid of her if you ask me.”

“Shut your damn mouth,” the other woman laughed breezily, seemingly unaware that she was bare-chested. “You know it’s gotta be more than that. I bet he did something to the treasury that he’s scared she’ll find out about. Covering his ass by sending us here.”

“Keep talking like that and he’ll send a cutthroat right to your chambers,” the one Arya wanted to press for more information giggled as if she wasn’t japing about a murder.

“I’d have stayed if Lord Petyr allowed it,” the blonde girl shrugged, popping another clam from Arya’s tray into her mouth thoughtlessly. “Varic told me the Dragon Queen’s handing out as much grain as people can carry, all through the streets of the capital.”

“Queen Margaery did the same,” the other one sighed as if the conversation exhausted her. “They’re just doing what they can to keep the little people from rioting again. They care about us s’much as King Joffrey did; they’ve just got prettier smiles.”

“We know why we’re here,” the naked girl smirked at her knowingly. “What about you?”

“I’m here with my husband,” Arya responded without thinking, internally slapping herself for having come up with that lie in the first place. It was the most believable, she tried to tell herself before letting the matter go in favor of gaining these women’s trust. “Spent all our coin getting here from Maidenpool. The war tore our home apart, so we thought we’d build a new one.”

“Long way to go just to start over,” the blonde mused, twirling a lock of hair around her finger absentmindedly. “I’d have just gone to Dorne if I were you. Braavos isn’t much.”

“Seven hells,” the brunette scoffed before looking at Arya as if trying to get her on her side. “Madge here fancies she’s in love with the Red Viper ‘cause he tupped her a couple times. Still think he’s gonna steal you away to Dorne, love?”

“A girl can dream,” she sounded annoyed now and a smidge offended. “Anyway, almost all of Lord Petyr’s girls were moved here. S’nicer than being a bed slave, at least. I hear all the whores around these parts get songs written for them. If they’re good, at least.”

They were still prattling on when a hint of purple caught Arya’s eye from the corner of the room. Her eyes locked with a girl wearing what looked like a flimsy excuse for smallclothes, bright and purple as if to impersonate royalty. Her insides chilled for a moment. Even when the eyes averted themselves, and even when the girl in question rushed down a corridor in the opposite direction from Arya, she was frozen.

_I know those eyes._

Brown and warm, with flecks of ember in them. She had known those eyes for years; she had loathed those eyes, and envied those eyes, and wanted nothing more than to gouge them out like a bird. She would know those eyes wherever she went, no matter who she became. What were those eyes doing in a Braavosi whorehouse?

Without thinking about what it would cost her, she slipped the straps of her tray off and practically shoved them towards the girls she had just been talking to, ignoring their confused calls to her as she chased after the girl who looked so much like a ghost.

There were three doors, all closed shut as if locks could keep Arya Stark out.

She peeked through the keyhole of the first one, cringing at the sight of an unnaturally bright-haired redhead bouncing on some soldier’s cock, before she retreated and looked through the second. Empty. She flung the door open right as she heard a surprised gasp from the other side of the room towards the fancily carved wooden wardrobe.

With dark hair that came down in flowing waves and ruby-red lips and charcoal-lined eyes… she almost looked nothing like the girl Arya had once known. And yet, this girl was unmistakably her, even with her downcast eyes and lifeless smile.

“Jeyne,” Arya breathed out, uncertain about what she should do with her hands now. What was the steward’s daughter doing _here_ of all places? “Jeyne Poole.”

“M’name’s Charlotte, milady,” the girl stammered, looking resolutely away from Arya as if she feared a whipping. For all that had changed about her physical appearance, her voice sounded exactly the same as it had every time she mocked Arya for the wonkiness of her stitches, and named her ‘horseface’, and spent hours in the night giggling with Sansa about which knight she would marry. “You must’ve got me confused with someone else.”

“You wouldn’t have run if your name was Charlotte,” Arya answered simply, seeing through her lies for what they were. “And how’d you know I was a lady without me telling you?” 

Gods, what was she _wearing_? It was so sheer that it was see-through; it was nothing Jeyne would have even looked at in Winterfell, so why was she wearing it now? Was she undercover as Arya was, somehow having ended up in a Braavosi brothel in an effort to shield her identity and eventually travel back North? Or the more likely option…

“Arya,” her voice wavered dangerously as her eyes flitted around the room. It was like she was expecting this to be an ambush of some sort. “Forget you ever saw me. Please just leave me be. You don’t want to stay here. If Lord Baelish finds you-”

“If he finds me,” Arya smirked, feeling for the small blade at her side, the one she had nicked from the forge while Gendry’s workmate hadn’t been paying attention. “I’ll slit his throat right down to the bone.”

At that, Jeyne’s expression shifted into one of fear rather than annoyance. “Arya, you-”

Within moments, Arya had made her mind up. “I’m not leaving without you.”

Just as she had done with Sansa, Arya would allow bygones to be bygones with Jeyne. They had grown up together, shared a home and a hearth. They weren’t children anymore, and both their fathers had died in that cursed city anyhow. Jaime Lannister had taken Vayon Poole from Jeyne, from what Arya had heard, and his repulsive son took Ned Stark away from both his daughters with just as little regard for the consequences of his actions.

She would be Jeyne’s family if she had no one else.

But her sisters would still be alive, wouldn’t they? And her mother? Even if Jeyne was determined to live her days out as a glorified whore —Gods, the thought of Jeyne Poole doing the things that every whore Arya knew did made her stomach roll over— it would be out of fear over truly wanting to stay. She couldn’t let her die here, not when there was something to be done about it. Mayhaps someday she could even take Jeyne back to Winterfell with her, whenever she went to show Gendry what snow looked like for true.

“Come with me,” Arya strode over to where Jeyne was practically quaking with fear, hand clasping around her old enemy’s wrist. “Jeyne, we need to go.”

Jeyne licked her lips, eyes darting around frantically as if she was looking for another excuse to give Arya that would ensure that she would leave her alone. She opened her mouth to speak but said nothing, and then repeated the action. Before long, someone would come in here, and the madam would throw Arya out before she could do so much as say two more words to Jeyne. They needed to hurry this up already.

“I- Arya, I- I cannot,” Jeyne mumbled like a pitiful thing, and anger spiked up within Arya. Would she truly give up so easily when she was being offered help? Gods, what had Littlefinger even done to her that reduced her into such a whelp at the thought of fleeing his service? She could just imagine what Jeyne had been forced to do in her custody and suddenly, she wanted to hunt the mustached man down and stab him a thousand times. 

_I’ll add him to the list_ , Arya compromised with herself, _and we’ll get justice soon enough._

If what the two whores from earlier said was true, he was planning on selling all of them to the stingy woman running the pleasure house no matter what.

“Jeyne,” Arya gritted her teeth.

“Leave me,” she whispered so low that Arya strained to hear it.

For a moment suspended in time, Arya considered leaving Jeyne to whatever life of fucking and destitution she hoped to live for herself here. But as soon as the image wormed itself into her mind, she knew that such a choice wasn’t possible. She couldn’t leave her here, but she very well couldn’t just run off with her and expect that people wouldn’t grow suspicious at the sudden presence of a runaway whore in the hovel.

Taking Jeyne with her would mean that she would likely have to abandon the life she had spent moons on end crafting for herself. The life that she and Gendry had made here together as Thom and Elyse, with steady work and livable wages. It wasn’t a choice at all though, really. Leaving Jeyne here wasn’t an option. Drawing in a deep breath, Arya resolved to see this done one way or another, even if she had to drag an unconscious courtesan out of a pleasure house herself.

Without wasting time thinking on it, she clenched her fist, drew it back, and knocked the daylights out of Jeyne Poole with a sharp punch.


	6. echoes fade away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya, Gendry, and Jeyne travel towards Pentos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm coming out of hiding rn to say I'm very sorry for the lack of updates but! The one good thing to come of this quarantine is that it's given me time to re-find this fic with all of the chaos of COVID-19, my recent surgery, grad school, and my computer erasing all of my outlines a few months ago. It's been a rough year but we're back!! Thank you guys for sticking it through!

The night air tickled the back of Arya’s throat as she lunged from behind a tree, a nearby boulder scraping her paws as she parried from side-to-side.

The object of her pursuit was close enough to taste and she was _so_ hungry.

It felt like there were mites tearing her insides apart, ripping the seams of her organs in a desperate attempt to get something—anything—to eat. She had never felt this hungry before, even when she was younger and on the run with little else but scavenged berries and half a portion’s worth of bread in her belly when she had been trying to find her way back home.  
  
It was agonizing.

She lifted her snout the tiniest bit, the breeze tickling her fur where it normally would have drawn shivers out of her. She could smell the blood in the air as if it had already spilled.

She wanted it more than anything in the world— to just sink her teeth into the elk she knew was slinking off nearby. The moisture in the trees was a welcome change to the dry Essosi climate she had grown accustomed to in the last few moons; it smelled like home, in a queer sense, though she recognized that ‘home’ didn’t feel like much of anything anymore.  
  
The ‘home’ in her head wouldn’t be her _home_ anymore. At least not the one she remembered.

She padded through the wooded area, leaves crunching beneath her and her tongue prickling as a splash of water momentarily disrupted her hunt. The trees covered most everything, but she didn’t need her eyes yet, not for this. Her ears pricked upwards at a shuffling sound nearby, and her mouth watered as she caught another whiff of the target of her attentions.

Crouching low on the ground, she wasted no time in leaping forward, clumsily kicking away a rock in her path as she made for her meal. She was more determined than ever to rip the creature apart to the bone and when she caught a glimpse of its frightened eyes, it was like a switch had been flipped within her. She snarled at the elk just as it had the impulse to run away and within seconds, she was upon it, her claws digging into its delicious flesh—

 _Arya_.

—and it smelled like a thousand feasts put into one.

It was raw, but she didn’t _care_.

It was _food_ and the prospect of eating it sent her head spinning. The beast bleated with fear and where she normally would have been horrified at the thought of carving it up while it was still alive, adrenaline seemed to pump through her veins faster than she could manage to comprehend.

It went down faster than she anticipated, her own body moving quickly from its rump to its side as she followed her natural instincts to incapacitate the creature. Before she could process what she was doing, the elk was trembling on the ground with her looming above it. And just as she had fantasized about just moments before, she attacked its neck with a vigor that seemed to possess her entirely.

The smell of blood filled her nostrils and the very scent of it overtook her with _relief_.

_Arya!_

Her ears perked up slightly and though she wanted to lift her head to investigate the source of the interruption, something carnal within her prevented her from doing anything but burrowing her face deeper into the carcass of the elk, no longer fighting against her now that it was dead.

She could feel a strange blend of a growl and a whimper escape her as she devoured whatever meat she could reach, now pointedly ignoring whoever saw it fit to interrupt her just as she was finally eating after what felt like years of sitting on an empty stomach. What could they want that was more important than this, anyhow? This was all she wanted, all she _needed_.

The meat practically melted on her tongue, splashes of blood melding in (and was it bad that it wasn’t unpleasant to taste?) as she desperately lapped at whatever she could.

And then she felt the sudden reflex to gag. Her mouth tasted like copper and the smell was pungent; she cringed away from it, but she wasn’t in the Riverlands anymore. She wasn’t in the middle of a forest, tearing some unassuming beast to pieces as the world came to a halt around her. She wasn’t a wolf as she had been in the dream, and as she had been in dreams before.

For years, she had been plagued with them—dreams of running through the woodlands and the hinterlands, dreams of drinking water from ponds and rivers alike, dreams of pursuing prey, dreams of running faster than her body could ever do, alongside an entire pack of wolves that somehow understood her better than other people did when she had the misfortune of waking.

They didn’t come often but were frequent enough to leave an impression on her.

They were more vivid than most dreams; more tangible, more real, more… more…

 _Nymeria_ , the stupidly hopeful voice of a younger Arya suggested, as if she hadn’t chased that version of herself away a thousand times over after her father had gotten his head chopped off. Dreaming got people killed when they weren’t careful to ground themselves to reality.

It was a fantasy and that was all it was. A product of her own imagination to fill the void she felt inside her left behind from what she had lost. The void of a home covered in snow and a family that wouldn’t see her shipped off to the Twins to become some pox-faced twat’s wife and a life where she could still be held by her own father, where he was now naught but bones and dust.

The air sent the same chill down her spine, but there was something coarse about it, like sand in her lungs and dirt in her nostrils.

It was disgusting and uncomfortable and all too familiar.

“Arya,” came a voice tinged with annoyance and concern both as her world shook around her. Or was it her that was being shaken? She could just make out the feeling of two large hands at either of her shoulders, practically knocking her back and forth in an effort to wake her. “Arya, please.”

“It’s still dark,” she protested groggily, a stab of anger shooting through her at the realization that she didn’t even _need_ to be awake right now. Gendry’s shoulders sagged as soon as he seemed to realize that she wasn’t dead or convulsing anymore, though his eyes looked crusted with sleep as well. Had he just woken up to make her life difficult? She rubbed one of her eyes and made no attempt to keep the annoyance out of her voice when she addressed him next. “What is it then?”

He floundered to come up with an excuse, his eyes darting adjacent to Arya for a moment before resettling on her. “You were jerking back and forth. Bad dream, I thought, ‘til I looked at your eyes. Arya, you were-” his brows furrowed together, his hand closed around her arm gingerly as his thumb absently rubbed circles over a spot on her shoulder. Her eyes dropped to the action but he made no motion to draw back from her. He set his mouth into a thin line. “It wasn’t normal.”

They had been sleeping outside more often than not, these days. Her sorry excuse for a bed was a tattered cloak she had stolen from one of the cabins on the trip to Braavos, filled with holes and singed at the edges from a cooking mishap when they had tried their hand at pigeon pie moons ago. Her neck made a crackling sound as she peered to her right and caught sight of a wide-eyed Jeyne staring at her as if she had seen a ghost. They had been wandering around for days now, camping outside a settlement halfway between Braavos and Pentos in an effort to isolate themselves from any passersby who might recognize them, unlikely as the possibility was.

No one was tracking them from what Arya could gather, but Jeyne’s absence from Littlefinger’s brothel wasn’t bound to go unnoticed for long. She hardly knew the pointy-bearded little man but from what she did know, he wasn’t the type to overlook loose ends in his ‘investments’ (the phrasing of that thought nearly made her gag) without some investigation. Her best hope was that he would make note of her absence but assume that Jeyne had merely run off with some client of hers or taken the chance to escape on her lonesome once she saw it. If he sent assassins or guards after them, there was only so far they could plausibly go now.

They hadn’t gotten lost yet, not like they had in the Riverlands; she recalled something Sansa (of _all_ people) had told her once about following the coastline when she herself had fled King’s Landing, and it hadn’t failed them yet.

All she knew for certain was that they had to go south.

She tore her eyes away from Jeyne to meet Gendry’s questioning gaze, oddly comforted by the strange intimacy between them. There was no awkward hitch of breath or uncomfortable cough whenever they got too close like there had been at first, just… something comfortingly familiar in the blue of his eyes and the warmth of his touch. It was a sharp contrast to the cool Braavosi air, chilling her in spite of the humidity of the region. It was worse than King's Landing in that sense, somehow more sweaty and uncomfortable while maintaining the cool climate of a Northern city, not quite as cold as Winterfell. It was more like Riverrun in that regard, but drier. 

He was the closest thing she had to family, and had been from the moment he sped across Riverrun’s drawbridge by her side; he knew what he was risking by following her to King’s Landing, and then again to Braavos. And he had done it regardless.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Arya exhaled slowly and shook off the last of her dream, trying not to acknowledge the way her heart picked up when Gendry tipped his head forward exhaustedly and rested his forehead against her shoulder. As if _he_ needed the comfort from her. He had never been particularly affectionate, even when they were at their loneliest; when they had nothing but each other and a bag of coin, and their circumstances were looking bleaker by the day. And now he was touching her, pulling her close to him, as if he wanted her reassurance for something.

All too aware of Jeyne’s gaze on them, she braced a hand on Gendry’s shoulder and leaned against him, shamefully reveling in having him so close to her. She recalled when they had first met—and then she recalled the acorn dress, and Tom’s song, and her reluctant indulgence in fantasies she had once swore to herself she would never acknowledge about any boy or lord.

She had been a child then, and yet…

The butterflies in her stomach hardened into stone when he pulled back, the corners of his lips quirking into a slight smile as his eyes flickered between hers. He flicked her birds nest of a braid, now long enough to require upkeep and half undone after a night’s worth of tossing and turning.

“Few hours left before the sun rises,” he noted absentmindedly and lowered his hand with a tired sigh, the moonlight glinting off of his black hair, slightly overgrown as well. It didn’t look terrible, to his credit. “Try not to do…” he snorted to himself. “-whatever that was again, yeah?”

 _You’ll send me to my grave, the pair of you_ , her father had said with such similar intonation once, a finger rubbing at his temple and the smallest smile playing on his lips. Sansa and her had been covered head-to-toe in porridge that day, a fight prompted over their lessons while the boys were out sparring. They had both wept and shouted in their childish attempts to explain themselves to him, only to both be chided for having equal part in the confrontation.

He had always admonished them gently, Arya realized now, though it had always felt like the worst thing in the world at the time. He’d always been softer with her and Sansa, and her forehead burned in the spot he would have kissed if he was here with her now.

Now, as Gendry groggily crawled back to his own side of the campsite to get what little sleep he could manage before dawn broke, she had never missed her father more.

“I tried to wake you,” came a soft voice from beside her, tremoring with every other word as if she was as scared as a mouse. “You wouldn’t… you wouldn’t stop trembling. I was frightened. I didn’t want you to-” Jeyne swallowed. “I was scared. I asked Gendry to help. You shouldn’t- you shouldn’t be cross with him, Arya, I- it was my fault, not his. I didn’t mean to- I just meant-”

“Jeyne,” Arya stopped her, schooling her features so as to not do anything that would make her feel worse than she already did. Jeyne scratched at her elbow nervously, her eyes flicking around as though she expected some ghoul or another to jump out of the shadows. Once they got to Pentos, they would have to get Jeyne some clothes of her own— for now, she had to settle for Arya’s largest trousers and Gendry’s smallest tunic, both of which looked oddly misshapen on her. It was better than nothing, she supposed. “It’s alright. I’m glad you woke me.”

Jeyne mustered a grimace at Arya, her nails scraping loudly against her skin as she nodded to herself. The atmosphere between them was tense as Gendry shuffled in his attempt at minding his own business. It never took him long to fall asleep—he snored anyhow, so she’d know once he actually got to it. The three of them had scarcely spoken since she packed whatever they could carry and broke the news that they had to leave to Gendry outside the hovel with a teary-eyed girl in tow.

Arya could only imagine what horrors she endured, just in the brothel alone. Seven hells, it had been nearly seven years since they had seen each other, and it was still like they were complete strangers. She hardly even _recognized_ the wretch in front of her now with splotchy skin, hollowed cheeks, and rounded purple-tinted sleep-deprived circles underneath her eyes. It was a frightening contrast to the rosy-cheeked girl who sneered her way every time she overslept before their lessons with Septa Mordane; this Jeyne was like another person altogether.

Jeyne’s fingers spasmed at her side as she looked back to Arya, seeming to want to say something but not quite mustering up the courage yet. Arya herself couldn’t think of what to say to her without putting her foot into her mouth and scaring her away from opening up to her.

Had she been living in a brothel this entire time? And how had she ended up in a _brothel_ after sharing tea with Princess Myrcella and Queen Cersei’s entourage? What had happened to her there?

 _Dead_ , she remembered Sansa answering flatly with pursed lips and a furrowed brow when Arya asked about what had become of Jeyne. With Father’s entire household put to the sword, she didn’t blame Sansa for presuming. She could just imagine the look on her sister’s face when she’d bring Jeyne to her doorstep. But Jeyne was a far cry from the girl who used to giggle into her palm as a child, and Sansa ( _Lady Greyjoy_ , Arya thought mockingly to herself with a stab of resentment directed Theon’s way for taking her sister from their family and clearing the path for Arya’s own planned marriage to proceed ahead) hardly had anything in common with her anymore.

Jeyne was a woman grown acting as skittish as a feral kitten. She had practically clung to Arya’s sleeve the whole trip, particularly when Gendry (who, in all fairness, did make a frightening picture to anyone who didn’t know him) left with them. It helped somewhat that he wasn’t overly talkative, as it seemed that she had gotten used to his presence, at the very least.

“We won’t stay in Essos forever,” Arya informed her matter-of-factly, unsure as to whether her words would be any comfort to Jeyne at all. “We’ll go home once we…”

She trailed off as the reality of her plans sunk in. They couldn’t just drag Jeyne around Essos, especially in her current predicament. She doubted she could make a temporary stop at home and just go on her merry way. Then again… would Robb truly hold her to marrying Elmar Frey now that he had seen how far she would go to avoid that fate? Would Mother? The Freys hardly seemed to care much about her virtue, so it wasn’t a card she could play as Sansa had done.

It wasn’t a pressing concern right now, so she would figure it out later. Their first priority was to get to Pentos, find some lodgings, make enough money to support three people, and _then_ work out where they would get to from that point. She had time to work it out.

“I’ve never been to the Iron Islands,” Jeyne whispered, indirectly answering her unspoken question as to whether Jeyne even knew her old friend had gotten married in her absence. It had to be an odd reality for a girl who had once stared after Robb with moist eyes; for him to have taken his own queen while Sansa became one in her own right. All the while, Arya was to be thrown to the wolves and Jeyne had been holed up in a Braavosi brothel. What a pair they made.

Arya waited for Jeyne to continue as she laid back down in her spot, to say something more to give Arya something to work with, but it seemed to be all she planned on saying to her.

“You could go home,” Arya suggested gently as Jeyne wrung her hands together, unsure as to what she even wanted to do from this point onward. She could scarcely even remember Jeyne speaking to Theon in her youth, so she might prefer returning to Winterfell over joining Sansa. Robb would gladly welcome her home, Arya knew, as would Catelyn. Roslin was dull from what Arya could recall but was pretty enough that Jeyne (or at least the Jeyne of the past) would have liked her, she tried not to think bitterly. Resenting her would do her no good. “Robb’s king now. He’d make a place for you if you asked it of him. We could…” she made a split-second decision and tried not to wince as she gave it a voice. “-take you there. If you wanted to go back North.”

What would she do if Robb commanded her to stay? If he planned to march her down the aisle to fulfil the very oath she had run from? A naïve, still-trusting part of her harrumphed at the train of thought, unwilling to conceive that Robb would throw her to the wolves if his duty demanded it of him. Then again, even Father would have sent Sansa into Joffrey’s arms after seeing who he truly was at the Trident, all those years ago; Lady had been butchered over that twit and Sansa had been expected to smile prettily for him and give him dozens of stupid blonde children.

Nobles weren’t immune to being ruled over by politics, she knew, even the very best of them. Would Robb be willing to risk a war with his wife’s house over Arya?

 _He loves me_ , the meager voice inside of her cried out. _He’d sooner slit Walder Frey’s throat_.

As much as she wanted to believe it, she couldn’t be certain. She knew better now than to rely on half-chances.

“Is my mother in Winterfell?” Jeyne asked as if she was afraid of the alternative, seemingly terrified just asking the question at all. As if she was frightened that her mother and sister had been taken from her just like her father and life had been. In truth, she didn’t know how they fared—but Winterfell had remained guarded since the war had first broken out. That had to count for something, didn’t it? How would Lady Poole react to seeing what had become of her daughter? She would be grateful, undoubtedly, but surely she would have some questions. “Has she- has she asked after me?”

“I’m not sure,” Arya responded honestly, unwilling to lie to Jeyne now that they were friends in some capacity. “I haven’t been there in years.” Jeyne’s eyes were glassy even in the cloak of nighttime, and the way her lower lip wobbled slightly was unmistakable.

Gods, this was a mess.

“I’m sure she misses you,” Arya added, unsure as to how to adequately comfort Jeyne. It was one thing with children—they were easy and sweet and hopeful. All you had to do was feed them some rubbish and their fears were forgotten. Gendry was… she understood Gendry and what he needed when he needed it.

Usually it was space. And when she would come back with a quirked eyebrow to receive his sheepish smile, his neck flushed red with embarrassment, they would go on like nothing had happened. Sometimes it would take a tap to the wrist or a light punch to the stomach or, on her bolder days, a hug that would send her mind reeling. As she craved his touch more, she touched him less out of some irrational fear that he would understand her attachment for what it was and cringe with disgust at the thought of her perceiving him as anything but a friend or brother.

Jeyne, however, was an enigma. 

It was like she was made of glass, fashioned so delicately that she could break at any moment. The slightest thing could set her off and send her into hours of moody, detached silence. The only thing worse than Jeyne’s tears was her indifference; it was jarring to see her like this.

“Oh,” Jeyne whispered into the night. “Do you miss it?”

Arya choked on her own response, her words dying on her lips.

She missed it all.

Mother chiding her for getting her hair tangled during her not-so-secret horseback rides through the wolfswood, smiling fondly at Arya as she whined her way out of getting her hair re-braided in time for dinner. Father giving her storybooks about all of the warrior princesses and pirate queens she had obsessed over in her childhood, laughing gently at her eagerness in absorbing the details of every book. Jon’s bright grin as they played together, wooden swords clashing as they pretended to be various heroes from the songs. The amused tint to Robb’s attentive eyes as she recited every complaint she had with her septa to him, as if he hadn’t been forced to study under Luwin himself when he was a child.

The false plots she and Sansa hatched together at Riverrun upon being reunited, their past hostility all but forgotten after all they had lost. The tinkle of Bran’s high-pitched laughter (and Gods, he was probably a man grown now) as they chased each other through the crypts, runny eggs clenched in their hands as they tried to pelt each other with eggshells. Even Rickon’s mindless little gurgles sent a pang of sadness through her.

Hodor’s cheerful smile whenever she would let him best her at the game she had devised with little Lyna from the winter town, and Luwin’s disappointed sighs as she sped past him on her way to the smithy, and the pinched face Septa would make whenever she would purposefully say something inappropriate to goad her into having to explain it to them, and Theon Greyjoy’s stupid laugh, and Jeyne’s snort of laughter upon seeing Arya’s stitching, and Beth’s experimentation gone wrong with her mum’s kohl, and the way Jory would tap the top of her head at feasts, and the tsk noise Gage would make whenever she would nick extra pies from the kitchens, and Mikken, and Barth, and the whole lot of them.

She missed them all more than she could express.

“All the time,” Arya murmured, turning in her place so that her face was obscured completely. Although Gendry’s breathing had evened out in slumber, Jeyne was wide awake as she was. They wouldn't sleep tonight, she knew, but at least they had the silent company of each other.

Neither of them said much of anything after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at briala!


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